


Wool Over My Eyes

by MalMuses



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cas Is One Feisty Librarian, Castiel Knits, DCBB 2019, Dean Is Way Too In His Head, Defiling the Book Stacks, Don't Be Fooled By The Sweater Vests, Librarian Castiel (Supernatural), Libraries, Library Sex, M/M, Mistaken Identity, Openly Bisexual Dean Winchester, POV Dean Winchester, Smart Dean Winchester, Strangers to Lovers, Student Dean Winchester, dean thinks too much, idiots to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 11:31:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21252704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MalMuses/pseuds/MalMuses
Summary: Dean Winchester was smart. Maybe he wasn’t Sam’s kinda smart, or fancy prep school smart, but he’d got through college on his own merit and he was quick and inventive and incredibly curious.His curiosity led him to the small private library near his university, to indulge a secret passion and, just maybe, catch sight of the infamously strict librarian—he had a weakness for devastatingly clever jerks (and okay, maybe a slight issue with authority). But instead of an intimidating Dragon of a librarian, he only found the librarian’s soft-spoken assistant, Cas.Quiet, shy guys with pretty eyes and handmade cardigans were not Dean’s type. So that couldn’t possibly explain why he kept coming back to the library, despite never once encountering the notoriously fierce librarian…





	1. Lavender

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everybody!
> 
> Welcome to my DCBB for 2019. It's always awesome to post a DCBB, but no year more than this year, which is the tenth anniversary of the bang! Thanks to muse and diamond for keeping it all running this year, and to all the other participants for providing us with so many gifts during Destiel Christmas.
> 
> I am lucky enough to be posting this fic along with art by [beesandbroomsticks](https://beesandbroomsticks.tumblr.com/) \- they were lovely to work with, and their art is simply gorgeous! Please do go and say hello to them or follow them if you can, our fandom is so lucky with the artists we have willing to work with us on projects like this, and I can never thank them enough. 
> 
> Sometimes it takes a small family to make a fic, though, so I can't possibly proceed without thanking captainhaterade for their feedback, patience, and commas, EllenOfOZ for her reassurance and assistance, andimeantittosting for never failing to encourage me while still being the voice of reason, and jscribbles and SOBS for being the best fandom friends a struggling writer could have at two a.m., every time. 
> 
> I also need to thank Ris for letting me use her library... I think Dean quite likes it, so thank you :) Adapted with authors permission, you can find the original novel [Checking Out Love](ris%20link%20from%20email%20here) here!
> 
> This fic is short and sweet, at least compared to a lot of my longer ones, ha! It doesn't have much in the way of warnings or things to tag, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.
> 
> So, without further ado...
> 
> \- Mal <3

Dean ducked out of his lecture the second that the bell rang. He made his way across campus as fast as he could, to the only free parking that he’d been able to find at eight that morning. Rush hour was about to hit, and Dean obsessively checked his phone as he hurried—he didn’t _ run, _ Dean Winchester was not a _ runner_, thank you—trying to make sure that he would have enough time to get to his destination with a couple of hours to spare.

He quickly texted Sam from the parking lot, letting him know that he was headed out on an “errand” after school and that he’d see him at home for dinner, so please do not cook. If Sam cooked, they’d end up with something unpronounceable with quinoa in it; Dean did not work his ass off at Bobby’s for fucking _ keen-wah._

Lawrence was twenty-minutes away from the university by the main highway, or fifteen minutes via the backroads, down a steep hill alongside an abandoned mine. Dean managed the trip in eleven, taking the turns with Baby, his ’67 Chevy Impala, in a way that would have panicked his mother, God rest her soul. She would have preferred it if he drove a safe, modern car to college rather than use his dad’s boat-like antique on crowded freeways or narrow, curvy roads. But new cars were expensive, and using Baby made Dean feel close to a family that was now all but gone. Dean figured that what Mary didn’t know couldn’t hurt her. Though if Heaven was a thing and she was watching, she’d probably whup his ass when he got there.

He’d been to the tiny town once before, for a party that one of the other Engineering 204 students had invited him to. He’d left early, though, to head home and make Sammy’s lunch for school the next day and so he hadn’t really taken in the neighborhood. Lawrence was a suburb, first just of the university, but then as the years went on, of other expanding colleges nearby. Despite being so well situated, as the rent prices soared in that part of Kansas, it inevitably changed. It felt like everyone abandoned the area, leaving only the extremes of expensive, rich homes where university administrators lived in the center, or entirely abandoned ones on the outskirts with sad windows and peeling paint. A lot of those had been demolished, leaving a tiny, quaint town at odds with the cities it was close to. Dean could see why the place had been popular with the fancy set for so long, though. 

The neat grid of Lawrence’s streets was almost mathematical in its precision. Near the center was an adorable town square with small booths belonging to local vendors and a beautiful fountain. Every street Dean peered down along the main road had lots of Victorian-style buildings and cute shops, in addition to the necessary coffee house chains that riddled the whole of America. He was jarringly out of place in his monster of a muscle car. He slowed down to a safe speed as he took in the number of kids and teenagers running around, trying to remember the last time he felt like running anywhere he didn’t have to. His little brother did that shit—it was crazy. The teenagers all appeared to be spending more on sugary iced coffees than he probably spent on food in a month, but such was the glamorous life of an orphaned grad student. The kids were also, by and large, heading in the same direction he was. 

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered to himself over the strains of Zeppelin II. 

He stopped at a traffic light and considered the moving throng of kids as if they were a bad omen. He realized that he ought to make certain his directions were correct, but then forgot all about consulting his phone when he looked over and realized his destination must be right in front of him—the magnificent red brick building taking up the entire next block simply had to be it. He’d heard about the private library in Lawrence, but seeing it was something else. Impressed despite himself, he took off when the light turned green, following the line of cars pulling around the block to the space in front of the library. The tiny, cramped parking lot had clearly not been part of the original building plan, looking strangely tacked-on to the approach of the otherwise perfect nineteenth century building. 

No one parked on the street, however; everyone was trying to avoid the parking meters. Dean rolled his eyes as he registered that even those metal money-munchers were painted neatly, and somehow managed to blend into this adorable, unbelievable neighborhood. Dean had a strange feeling that this was the kind of place where even the parking enforcers smiled, despite their thankless, superior jobs. He bristled at the mere thought. Some of the cars in front of Dean ventured across the street to a café that was also overflowing with teens and pre-teens. Others left to circle the block. Dean parked at the edge of the library’s lot, taking up more than one parking spot because, firstly, no one was scratching his Baby, and secondly, she was a nightmare to park. Not that he’d ever say as much out loud. He quickly noted the two-hour parking sign to his left and checked his phone screen for the time. 

“Should be fine, as long as I don’t get caught up,” he muttered to himself as he stepped across the concrete, his old boots pounding far more loudly than any of the kids’ expensive sneakers. _ I could pay our rent with those sneakers, _ he thought bitterly.

Beyond the two-hour sign, a short path wound under a sycamore tree that was spreading its seeds across the entire parking lot. It led to a building that was nearly as intriguing as the library—a small, colonial-style house. The hulking, red brick magnificence of the library would have overwhelmed the tucked-away house if not for the greens, yellows, and sky blues of the hand-painted trims along the doors and windows, and the absolute sea of flowers on either side of the path. The rainbow of wildflowers softened something inside Dean—he wasn’t a flowery person by nature, but damn, that was pretty. There was a birdhouse—not a cruel cage, but a genuine wooden dove house that let the birds fly free. Someone had taken the time to paint tiny bees here and there over the porch and around the house and yard. The more Dean stared, the more of them he saw, like they were breeding somewhere out of sight. 

Dean blinked, just a little bit in love already. A wooden sign hanging from the railing along the porch read _ Lawrence Historical Society _ and instructed those interested to contact the library information desk if they needed to make an appointment. The quirky, asymmetrical old house had been restored and repainted some time recently, but he’d bet those windows were the original single-paned glass, or something close. He’d freeze on winter nights, he decided, but sighed happily when he saw the tell-tale peek of a brick chimney peering over the roof. Then he noticed the rocking chair on the porch, complete with a long-haired gray cat. The cat was studying him—judging him. 

The cat was right to judge. Dean was getting way ahead of himself again… big time. He’d been raised in a cheap, cookie-cutter apartment in the city, and would probably die in one. This colonial that was the Lawrence Historical Society—and apparently someone’s home—was so far out of his reach it was laughable. 

Not to mention he was only visiting the town, not moving there. 

He probably wouldn’t even enjoy working on his tinkering projects on that porch on a sunny day—a Sunday, so the library parking lot would be quieter. And living across the street from a quaint café? Who wanted that? They probably had lousy coffee that his imaginary future girlfriend or boyfriend wouldn’t bring him to help get his bear-like self out of bed. 

He had other things to think about, in any case. Like a thesis and his options after that, and whether Sammy was even going to graduate or be led astray by that awful Ruby chick. Then Dean would never be able to get a proper job, because most employers didn’t care for releasing newly hired twenty-four-year-olds early each day to pick up their baby brothers from college, or at this rate, rehab. 

_ Way to let mom and dad down, Dean_, he considered, tearing his eyes away from the adorable house he’d never have as inklings of reality trickled into his mental pages.

He was getting distracted, but he was sure the library itself would help him get his head straight; not even Dean could get distracted in a sturdy, respectable establishment like this one. It screamed focus, and he should easily be able to get what he came for and head on out. He probably wouldn’t even need the two hours. Well-maintained red brick and white shutters covered in green, variegated ivy seemed at odds with the piles of backpacks out front and all the laughing teenagers. Those were the popular kids. Those had been Dean’s people, back in his high school days. The kids who ditched class, and smoked, and gave their mothers palpitations. 

Oh, how Dean regretted that. His dad had passed more recently, but it was his mother’s loss that was still—would always be—too fresh to sit well. These days he was not only more determined to make Mary proud, but was much more comfortable with who he was, rather than who other people wanted him to be, and felt no need to follow the popular crowd. Even his rebellions, these days, were markedly geeky. The trip to the library was a perfect example. He was supposed to be working on his thesis. Instead, he’d heard a rumor and taken off to investigate. After all, playing hooky at a library was hardly even hooky, he told himself.

He settled his backpack more firmly on his shoulder and smoothed down the front of his slightly holey Metallica shirt—the holes were under the armpits, it was fine, no one could tell beneath his plaid—as he walked up the steps to the entrance. 

He noticed a plaque (of course there was a plaque) announcing the age of the building and mentioning that the library used to be the Novak Mansion before the family had built a larger house on the other side of town. This building had also survived the 1906 Manhattan, Kansas earthquake intact, the plaque went on, although the original door frames had not. Smiling faintly, because it was such a ridiculous little footnote to be proud of that it instantly became charming, Dean strode inside the building. 

The noise was the first thing that struck him. Everyone was using their proper library-hushed voices, but that didn’t matter when there were so many of them. It seemed the Novak Library was the center of afterschool activity in Lawrence. He paused to note the rooms off to the side, opened up and filled with long tables. The teenagers seemed to be gathered around them, and Dean didn’t particularly care to work out what they were doing. The circulation desk was in the center space by the entrance, occupied by a slim, red-headed lady in her twenties and an overgrown Swiss cheese plant—which Dean only recognized because his mom had owned one—resting on what looked like an _ actual _ lace doily. On his other side, in what had probably been parlors a long time ago, everything was brightly colored, shatterproof and wipe-clean. Much younger children were running amok. 

Farther ahead, beyond rows of computer stations, he saw stacks of books—the fiction section, he guessed from the colorful spines. Chairs and benches lined the walls, many of them in sunny windows. To one side a staircase led to the second floor. The second level contained the Novak Library’s real claim to fame—the Charles J. Shurley-Novak Special Collections Library. Dean hesitated. Was he allowed to just go up there? He wasn’t sure. The Novak Library and the university had an arrangement so that students and professors could use the small, private library’s resources. Dean was allowed to not only checkout books here if he needed, but to access the rare books and artifacts in the collection. 

However, venturing up those stairs was something attempted only by the brave or the desperate, and Dean still wasn’t sure if he needed some kind of special permission—they were part of the _ special _collections, after all.

Though Dean was only partly there for the books. Well, mostly. He was there for a particular book… but also to assuage his curiosity about something in particular. 

Somewhere in this building, possibly up those very stairs, lurked… the Dragon. A librarian so notoriously strict, it was rumored that he had gotten more than one disrespectful student banned for life from not only this library, but the university’s as well. That shouldn’t have been possible for anything short of sex in the stacks—which, honestly, was a far more common occurrence than the university liked to pretend. Dean sincerely doubted anyone was permanently banned for it. He found it far more likely that the ones who got caught bangin’ in the books were simply too embarrassed to return. 

Dean had personally never fucked anyone in the stacks, though not for a lack of trying. The problem with being one of those people who looked pretty—Dean was well aware that he did—but was strange, and cagey, and kind of intense sometimes, was that people never found what they were expecting when they actually started peeling Dean’s layers. By date three, Dean was usually left alone with his running thoughts and his dashed visions of families and white picket fences. He was blunt, and a bit uncouth, and all he had going for him most of the time was a cocky smile and an ability to bluff his way through almost anything.

Ah well, he was still young. And in the meantime, he had school and work and interesting side trips like the one he’d decided to take to the library. Dean had been meaning to sneak a look at the Dragon for over a year now, but between work at the salvage yard and his studies, he hadn’t had the time. He hadn’t needed anything from the Novak Library either, until yesterday, when his friend Benny had mentioned a diary in the special collection. 

In the nineteenth century, the most senior Novak, Charles J. Shurley, had lived in the area and his teenage daughter, Annalise, had kept a diary. At fourteen or fifteen, Annalise was way ahead of her peers. She’d ignored the constraints that her gender had chained her with at the time and had managed to produce some truly remarkable papers on early electrical engineering and semiconductor devices, which were later refined into transistor radios. Her father, and many of her peers had disapproved of her tinkering with “men’s work,” but her legacy lived on, at least locally. Even so, Dean hadn’t had a clue, until Benny opened his big Cajun mouth, that her actual _ diaries _ had survived. She’d written them almost entirely in code—creating her own language to prevent her older brother Lucien from stealing her research and selling it as his own—and she was only a teenager.

If the stories were true, that was some Tolkien-level shit and Dean needed to see it. He could brave the Dragon if that particular treasure was a part of his hoard. 

“Hey, Dean!” The voice of an exceptionally perky, fire-haired girl with a petite frame and—Dean was well aware—a surprisingly firm right hook came from directly behind him.

“Charlie!” he exclaimed, in his most obedient library hush. “Didn’t know you’d be here today.”

She waved vaguely at the “Volunteer” sticker on her Tetris-print sweater. “They let me come whenever, just to make up the hours. Let me guess, Benny must’ve finally told you about Annalise’s diary.”

“Hell yeah,” he said with a grin, pointing toward the staircase. “It’s upstairs, right?”

Charlie, his best friend from high school and now fellow university detainee, nodded. “Yup. You gotta head into the lair of the monster if you want that book, Dean,” she said with a wink.

Dean raised both his eyebrows. “You mean…_ him?_” He paused, looking around and dropping his voice lower, as if not wanting to get caught using the word. “You know…the Dragon?”

There was a twinkle in Charlie’s eye as she responded, hushed but clearly amused. “It’s okay, you can use the name. Even the staff here call him that. I mean…not to his _ face_, obviously, though I’m sure he’s aware. But it’s…kinda affectionate, I guess.”

“So, he’s not that protective?”

Charlie pursed her lips and tilted her head to the side, both eyebrows raised in an expression that told Dean he _ had _ to find out for himself. “Well, I never said that…” she replied. “Head on up, dude. You don’t need permission just to go up—there should be someone up there to help you at this time of day.”

“Thanks, Red.” Dean only paused to give her a quick slap on the shoulder before he moved off toward the stairs again, more keen than ever to get his hands on the diary—and maybe, just maybe, get a peek of the mysterious Dragon.

He pulled his heavy plaid shirt tighter around himself as he moved through the lower level. The plaid was mostly a fashion choice (or more of an anti-fashion choice, but whatever), though it was also cooler inside the old building than it was outside. The stairs creaked, despite the carpeting, showing the library’s age. He liked that. There was something appealing about the history, however domestic and ordinary, of this place. The pride its caretakers clearly still took in it was endearing, right down to the polished bannisters on the noisy steps. 

The second floor was markedly different in atmosphere from the first. Dean considered the open space, realizing that the original walls must have been knocked down decades before to leave so much room for the bookshelves and large tables. Sunlight filtered in through blinds on the windows, much like downstairs, although there was a noticeable lack of couches or soft benches. The tables were made of polished dark wood, with brass lamps in the center and little cups filled with pencils—Dean couldn’t remember the last time he’d made notes with an actual pencil, rather than a chewed, slightly gross pen. Usually a pen he’d either been given free for advertising or had stolen from the bank, at that. The carpet was deep green and thick enough to muffle the noise of Dean’s boots. Not a single child or teenager was to be seen. 

The stacks around him seemed to be full of heavy, leather-bound reference books that couldn’t be left downstairs amid all the families and chaos. Dean momentarily forgot his quest for the diary and slipped down the nearest aisle to scan the titles. He reached the end, turned the corner, and headed down a new row, noticing the complete absence of dust. The Dragon had to be real, this place was too perfect to be maintained by a mere mortal. He swung around the end of the row, nearly knocking over a fern on a tall stand with his canvas backpack. Dean managed to dip to the side and catch the poor plant before any damage was done, and let out a long, shaky exhale. He twisted around to make sure he had a hold of his bag and jumped when his shoulder smacked into something large and unexpectedly _ solid._

The sound of books hitting the floor, even on the lush carpeting, echoed through the entire space. The man he’d almost flattened, though, didn’t make much noise beyond the necessary _ “Oof!” _ as Dean knocked the wind out of him. The few people seated at the tables raised their heads, then quickly lowered them again. 

Dean finished turning around, then ducked back between the rows of shelves in embarrassment. He knelt down to set his bag on the floor and start gathering up books. The selection was pretty random for one person’s reading material; the man must have been shelving books. Great, his first time here and he’d assaulted one of the assistants. “I am so sorry, dude.” 

“I’ll live,” came a deep, throaty rumble from above.

Glancing up at the sound, Dean was met with black pants and a tall, imposing figure who was still holding a book in each hand, the rest of his stack around Dean’s knees. He quickly gathered them up into a rough pile, tidying them so that he’d they’d be easier to carry as he stood.

The man watched quietly as Dean cleaned up the mess he’d made.

Dean rose to his feet and held the stack out. “We don’t have to tell the Dragon, right?” he hoped out loud, then froze. The name had kinda slipped out…but then, Charlie had said even the staff called him that. He turned his attention the man he’d collided with, and he couldn’t quite decide what to focus on first. He had wild, dark brown hair, almost black except that Dean was standing close enough to tell. His skin was tanned, more than Dean would have expected on someone who worked indoors, and his tall frame was taut with muscles. He wasn’t bulky, no, rather more coiled and tight-looking, utterly solid without looking like he made much effort at all. The guy had serious glasses with heavy frames and a knitted lavender cardigan covered in cat hair. The lavender made his eyes seem sharp, sky blue, something made more dramatic by how they were framed by his dark lashes. It was the kind of blue you saw in touristy paintings of Greek villas, and Dean was oddly reminded of the university’s field trip to Athens that he hadn’t been able to afford to go on. The Greek god who stood silently before him now had scruff that was threatening to become a full beard, which would probably look good on him. Anything would probably look good on him, even Dean.

Sadly, he was not Dean’s type. Dean’s type didn’t draw their thick, fuzzy eyebrows together in confusion and take their stack of books back with a soft, annoyed exhalation. Dean’s type tended to be as outgoing as Dean was—or close to it—and driven. The kind of jerks who enjoyed challenging him and testing his brain—and then left when they realized that underneath, he was a Midwestern boy who wanted a picket fence and three adopted kids.

“Keep your voice down,” the guy in the lavender sweater ordered, but in a whisper. 

Dean froze again, then felt his mouth turn up the way it had when he read the plaque outside. He’d never been on the receiving end of such a stern—but soft—tone before. “Right, sorry!” Dean took it as a challenge to be as bright as he could possibly be while also whispering. “We are in a library, after all. I didn’t mean to be loud, but you startled me. Don’t tell on me. I’ll be good. No need to call the Dragon.” 

The man in lavender stared at Dean for another moment, this time studying him from scruffy boots to ratty bag, pausing at the Metallica emblem tight across his chest. “Dragon?” 

“You know, the guardian of this place? Like something summoned to sit atop the hoard and keep mere mortals away,” Dean explained, overcompensating to cover the fact that he’d messed up by letting the nickname slip, in the way he often overcompensated for everything: by steamrolling straight through it. The lavender cardigan had one sleeve that was longer than the other. Dean wanted to tug on the shorter sleeve until it made sense. He focused on the titles of the books in the man’s large, capable hands. It was definitely a wider selection of titles that one person would probably read, so he decided that despite the guy's apparent bewilderment, he must have been right; he'd been stacking shelves. “You work here, right? So, you must know him? Maybe he’s not a monster.”

“I—maybe,” the assistant said, sounding dazed.

Dean took a breath and peered around the man’s impressive shoulders. The other patrons were either ignoring them now, couldn’t hear, or didn’t care. Dean returned to the conversation, admittedly one-sided. “There are lots of rumors about him. Puts some people off I think, but I’ve heard a lot about the stuff you have here, how old some of it is and how rare. That shit is amazing.” Dean briefly put a hand over his mouth in dismay. “Library. I’ll watch my language. Sorry, again.”

The soft librarian stared at him for another moment after trailing off into silence, then shook his head. “Are you…?” Once again, he didn’t finish whatever he’d been about to say. He coughed and a determined look flickered across his face. “Do you need help with something?” 

Did he ever. Dean sighed again and tried to rearrange his brain cells. Softy librarian wasn’t his type. The shoulders and this library were affecting him, that was all. “Sorry—rude—I’m Dean.”

“Dean,” the gravelly voiced librarian echoed quietly, as if it was a new name, or more likely, one that he had no idea why he was being given.

“Yup, Dean Winchester. I’m a grad student over at the university, doing my master’s in engineering—I didn’t actually come here to assault the library assistants, I promise, or even to get a peek of the Dragon. Though, honestly, that was at least half the appeal. I gotta find out if he’s even half as monstrous as I’ve been told.”

The librarian gawped, blank.

“I’m actually looking for the special collections,” Dean clarified, realizing that in all his oddly nervous babble—what the hell was wrong with him? Dean Winchester didn’t _ babble,_ okay—he hadn’t even said what it was he was looking for. 

Both intense eyebrows went up, then down. Then the man blinked and looked Dean over one more time. Dean regretted the plaid and the boots. He probably looked like a disrespectful jock with them on, instead of a cool yet responsible grad student. His short sandy hair was a bit of a mess, too—it wasn’t his greatest feature (he was convinced that was either his green eyes or his great smile), but he did put some effort into it on the rare occasion he went to a bar, or actually attempted a date. Not that it mattered; he wasn’t trying to impress a guy with a knitted sweater that was probably more cat hair than wool. Fusty cardigan man was the least terrifying man in existence, even with his distractingly handsome face.

Dean looked up, then realized he was staring into blue eyes and not blinking. “What’s your cat’s name?” 

The confusion on wooly librarian’s face only deepened. “I…”

“That was a weird question, huh?” Dean offered, wincing at how very _ not cool _he was being. “How about we just stick to the stacks, huh, buddy? The special collections?”

The silence wasn’t heavy, just…somewhat dazed. Lavender cardigan looked like he’d been hit by a truck and wasn’t sure if all his parts were still inside where they were meant to be. “Special collections, yes,” he echoed.

“Yeah. See, my buddy told me that there are some pretty rare books from the area up here. Apparently, the Dragon is guarding Annalise Novak’s diary in his hoard.” Dean paused to wiggle his eyebrows enthusiastically. “I’m an engineering grad student, and I just wondered if that was true, and if it was, could I see it?”

“Miggles,” soft man said, his voice not soft at all. His voice was a rasp, a rough night, shifting gravel, mornings before coffee. 

There was a pause.

“What?” Dean tried. “What’s a… Miggles?”

“You—you asked my cat’s name.” The librarian was straightening his impressive shoulders by then. He raised one lavender arm—the one with the shorter sleeve—and gestured over to one of the smaller rooms that ran off the side of the main reference area. “The special collections are all over here.”

“Hell yes!” Dean crowed, delighted, pumping his fist.

The librarian’s head snapped back to Dean, his mouth falling open, his brows instantly furrowed and dark with annoyance. But before he could say anything, Dean slapped his hand up to his face, covering his mouth. He slid his fingers down to his chin, revealing a corny, desperate grin. 

“Oops,” he whispered. “Library. Right. Sorry.” Dean kept his eyes on the librarian, firing him over a quick wink. Wait—what? A wink? Whichever part of his brain was in charge of his eyeballs needed to take a seat.

The wool-covered man was still looking at Dean like he was a fish out of water; one that had somehow jumped so far from its home that the man had almost stepped on it. But even bamboozled as he appeared, he nodded back toward the special collections area once again, and began to move toward it.

Dean followed along behind, silent and obedient, trying to quell his excitement at the fact that he might actually get to see Annalise’s work for himself. He wondered briefly when he became such a nerd, but then dismissed the thought. He was too cool to be a nerd. He was just _ passionate _ about stuff. Some stuff, anyway. Something he could definitely learn to be passionate about was the ass that was moving across the library’s thick, silent carpet ahead of him. The thighs it was on top of were enough to choke a man, dress pants straining just enough at the seams, and the firmness of the butt cheeks he couldn’t look away from was enough to draw tears. Not from Dean of course. From someone whose type was fusty librarians, obviously. Which Dean’s was not. 

No, no, Dean liked confident, smart jock types, he told himself. Women mainly, it often seemed, but he had fumbled with and fallen for more than one guy in his time.

But no one in a cardigan. Obviously. 

The room that the librarian led him to was still sizeable, even though it was a much smaller wing off the side of the main library and miniscule by comparison. The dark green carpeting stopped, giving way to a sterile floor of white laminate tile—easy to clean and keep entirely dust free. There were no plants here, no carefully tended ferns or spider plants or philodendrons. Nothing that would require moisture, the air noticeably dryer than out beyond the door thanks to the air purifier that chugged away in the corner, helping to preserve the treasures hidden there with a happy hum. There were several tables, slightly higher than the ones in the main area, with simple wooden stools. In the middle were yet more cups of pencils—oh, the horror of a flying ink blot or dropped pen—and boxes of soft cotton gloves. 

There was also a small desk off to the side, overseeing all the tables, carefully positioned so that whomever sat at it would be able to sit in judgement over each and every patron who dared enter his realm. This, Dean realized, this room was the den of the Dragon. His eyes scanned the desk, and he was proved correct—a shiny brass plaque (Another plaque. Of course there was another plaque!) announced that the desk was a restoration of Charles Novak’s original writing table, and above it a neat tent-card announced, “James C. Novak IV, Curator.”

Dean’s eyes widened, and he leaned his head over to the side, stage-whispering across to the lavender man, “So he _ does _ work on this floor! You must work with him every day, huh? Is it as bad as everyone says? Is he really scary, as much of a monster as everyone says?” The eagerness in his voice was odd, perhaps, but Dean was fascinated with this legendary librarian. He had to know if the infamous jerk was anything like he was supposed to be. Dean loved a challenge.

“The diary,” the librarian said very suddenly, eyes wide as he paused at the end of an empty table. He seemed to ignore Dean’s question entirely, and a twisted part of Dean wondered if it was because he was afraid of the Dragon and couldn’t be caught bad-mouthing him. “Can I ask what you want with it? Is there something particular for your studies that you need to find?”

Dean shook his head, flushing slightly as he admitted, “Nah, man. Just personal interest.”

The dark eyebrows raised upwards. “Interest,” he said flatly.

Dean nodded, letting out a sigh. “I actually like what I’m studying, okay? Engineering is kind of fascinating, learning the principles that can take lumps of nothing and turn them into something. I’ve always loved that, ever since I was a kid. Once, when I was a teenager, my mom gave me this Walkman, the old cassette kind, and I decided I was gonna turn it into—” Dean cut himself off suddenly. He didn’t know why he was talking at all, let alone sharing personal anecdotes. He turned his attention down to the table the librarian had stopped next to and lowered himself onto one of the stools.

The lavender-clad man was looking down at him, both physically and metaphorically, Dean felt. 

“I get that I don’t look smart, okay. Just a pretty face, yadda yadda, I know. But I’d just really like to see what she wrote. She’s fascinating.”

Fuzzy librarian was watching Dean with some kind of rapt fascination, an intensity that should probably have made Dean uncomfortable, but didn’t. It went on for a long minute, until Dean moistened his lips and tried asking again, with a little more finesse.

“It’d be really awesome if you could let me see it, buddy. I drove here specially, and—"

“Annalise didn’t write in clear English,” the dorky librarian interjected. “She made up a kind of—”

“Her own code,” Dean burst out with a grin. “A constructed language. I know. That’s so cool, right?”

Huge blue eyes blinked slowly. “Yes,” he said crisply. “Cool.” 

Dean could almost hear the air quotes. “Cool”. Either the cardigan wearing softy was mocking him, in some weird gentle way, or he really didn’t talk to enough human beings to have any sense of common idioms. “My friend back at the university,” Dean responded, politely enough that his mom would have been proud, “he said that there was a reference lexicon? That the Novak family translated it all after her death?”

The librarian made a soft hum of agreement, and gave Dean one more long, lingering look of what appeared to be genuine curiosity. “Usually, people request _ appointments,_” he said, his voice twisting the last word into a soft reprimand. “The collection needs time for rest and care, it can’t be out on the tables willy-nilly.”

“Willy-nilly?” Dean couldn’t help but repeat, desperately pressing down the smirk that threatened his face. “Wow. Did you really just say that, buddy?”

The librarian frowned deeply, pushing his glasses up his nose as he fixed Dean with a sour squint. “These books,” he began firmly, charged with meaning, “are very old, and very—”

“Precious,” Dean cut in, sensing a gentle rant about to come his way. Man, this guy was such a nerd. “Yeah, I totally get that. I respect it, I really do. I mean, that’s the whole point, right? I came here for a reason, dude.”

“Dude,” the fluffy, soft purple man responded, sounding like he was letting out air, confused and off-kilter.

“Exactly,” Dean said, nodding solemnly.

The librarian regarded Dean for another long moment more, shaking his head back and forth slowly, as if he wasn’t sure what Dean _ was. _ But the interest in his eyes gave him away, and Dean began to hope that maybe—just maybe—he was going to get his hands on the diary after all. The man gave a sharp nod and turned on a dime before marching away from the table with an oddly determined expression.

“Does—does that mean I get to look at the diary?” Dean called after him, before slapping his hand up over his mouth again. “Oops. Sorry!” he stage-whispered at the rear of the retreating lavender cardigan. There was a loose thread running down the back of it, Dean noted.

Of course there was.

Dean slowly let out a breath, puffing it past his lips as he pressed his palms down into his kneecaps, looking around the room. There were a couple of other people—Patrons? Customers? What did libraries have?—and they both had their heads down, peering intently at large tomes on small book rests on their tables. They wore the white gloves, and one of them even had a magnifying glass. Dean didn’t have a magnifying glass…he hadn’t even washed his hands. Feeling oddly childish and unprepared to be in this strangely hallowed place, Dean shoved his hands under his thighs. He sat on them, wiggling his fingers in the tight space between his beaten jeans and the hard seat.

There was something ticking. It took Dean a moment to register that it was a _ clock_—he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a wall clock that wasn’t in an exam room, he didn’t even wear a watch these days. Looking up at it, he realized that he only had an hour left until the Charles J. Shurley-Novak collection closed. He’d so hoped to get a peek at the fabled Dragon while he was there. Though, given his propensity for being far too loud so far, perhaps it was good he’d ended up with softy assistant instead. He was disappointedly pondering that he wouldn’t get to read much of the diary in just an hour when the librarian reappeared.

“You’re lucky,” he said in a soft rumble. “The diary was not checked out today. But next time, an appointment.”

Dean nodded, delighted and eager.

He had a much newer book, the lexicon Dean assumed, tucked under his arm along with a book stand, and in his gloved hands he held an unassuming, brown, leather bound book. The stand, and then the book, were set down very carefully on the table.

“If you wish to make notes,” the librarian said quietly, “I must respectfully request that you use a pencil. We don’t allow ink near the—”

“Of course,” Dean agreed, nodding as he waved the man’s words away, grabbing a pair of the cotton gloves from the box next to the pencils. “No worries, buddy. I won’t be taking notes.”

“No notes?” A head tilt. One that, if musty book men had been Dean’s type, would have been absolutely adorable. 

“No notes,” Dean reaffirmed.

The librarian looked puzzled, his dark eyebrows pulling close across his brow and forming a bump of skin on his forehead which was oddly…fascinating. Dean tore his eyes away. He had a date with Annalise Novak. And the Charles J. Shurley-Novak collection was closing in fifty-four minutes.

“Thank you,” Dean stage-whispered up to the librarian with a wide grin, kinda proud that he’d remembered to keep his voice low.

The man seemed not to notice, or at least think that such basic etiquette did not warrant a cookie, as he merely nodded and stepped back. He gave Dean one more lingering look before he left the table, and the private collection room entirely.

His retreating lavender back held Dean’s attention for a long moment. It looked so, so soft, that wool. He briefly considered how a blanket made of that fuzzy lavender yarn might look on the back seat of his Chevy Impala.

What they hell was wrong with him? He shook his head, scoffing at himself.

Dean turned to the diary, eager.

Swiftly, lexicon in hand, he began to fumble his way through. At the beginning, it was a trial. Working out word by word what the smart-as-a-whip Annalise was saying took a minute; the language she’d designed to hide her research from her family was involved and complex. But as the pages went on, Dean began to pick up the commonly used words and his translations got quicker and quicker.

He was so wrapped up—fascinated that this young girl could have written these amazing things so long ago, unsupported, hidden—that he didn’t notice the extra quietness that settled through the air as the library emptied out below, or the soft footsteps progressing up the stairs.

So Dean jerked when a light hand tapped his shoulder, his head shooting up to chastise Quiet Librarian for sneaking up on him—but it wasn’t him. Dean pushed down the puzzling wave of disappointment that rose up through his torso. The petite woman with deep brownish-red hair, that had been standing behind the circulation desk on the first floor back when Dean had arrived, looked across at him, smiling oddly. She wore a soft, navy skirt-suit that flattered her hair and her pale complexion, and Dean decided that she looked friendly enough; the sticker on her left lapel saying, “ABC Champion!” probably had something to do with that.

“You’re still here,” she said, a statement not a question.

“Yes, I—oh! I’m sorry, is the library closing now?” Dean’s eyes widened. “I totally lost track of time, I’m really sorry, damn. I’ll just…” He trailed off, scrambling, peeling off his white cotton gloves and shifting around until he remembered which side of his seat he’d left his backpack on. 

She smiled patiently, gesturing down to the open diary. “It’s perfectly alright. She’s pretty fascinating, isn’t she?” 

Dean nodded in awed agreement. “Hell, yes. No wonder the Shurley-Novak family made a name for themselves, if they were all quiet geniuses like that kid.” He pushed his chair back, straightening up as he hoisted his canvas bag back to his shoulder. “I’m super-grateful that the assistant even let me take a peek without an appointment.”

She nodded, a smile tugging at her lips that Dean didn’t understand, and began to pull on a pair of cotton gloves of her own. “Yes, he didn’t want to disturb you himself… but he was very determined that I offer you an appointment to come back, if you wish. And as for the Shurley-Novaks, well, we aren’t all geniuses, but I am named after her. I’m Anna Novak.”

Excitement bubbled up in Dean, making his ribs tingle. “Anna Novak! So… you work downstairs…does that mean it’s true? That the famous James. C. Novak works up here on the second floor?”

She fixed him with an odd look, her long, very straight hair sliding forward over her shoulder as she tilted her head at him. “Yes, my brother is the one in control of the Charles J. Novak-Shurley collection… Famous?”

Dean gave her a conspiratorial wink as he pushed his chair in, watching her gently lift the diary from its book rest, preparing to return it to wherever such a precious artifact lived and slept when grubby grad students didn’t want their mitts on it. “Well, he has a certain reputation among the university students—”

“Ahh,” she said knowingly. “Indeed. The Dragon, you call him, don’t you?”

Dean opened his mouth, a little cautious—_he _ certainly hadn’t made up the nickname, but this was the guy’s sister…and he still, feasibly, could be around the library somewhere, even if Dean hadn’t been lucky enough to lay his eyes on the monster yet. So, he closed his mouth firmly.

She grinned, something wicked and teasing about her, and let out a little laugh. “I promise you, while the rumors aren’t entirely unfounded—he can be fearsome, and passionate enough about this library that each and every tale you’ve heard of him is undoubtedly true—that isn’t _ all _ he is. He is probably not what you expect.”

That only piqued Dean’s interest further, driving his eyes away into the stacks as if some tall, hulking man with a voice like thunder was in there, just waiting to pop out. But there was nothing—only the tiniest flash of lavender wool at the far end. Dean craned his neck, strangely eager to see the fusty cardigan man again, but he was gone out of sight. 

“Are you done with the diary?” Anna Novak asked politely. “It was free today, but usually we do require appointments—”

“Oh, yeah,” Dean cut in, nodding. “The Dragon’s assistant told me about the appointments. I’d really like to see more of the diary, honestly—” _ And maybe the Dragon, _ he added mentally. “—so, can I make one? Book me in for a date.”

“With Annalise,” Anna finished quietly, flashing an oddly knowing smile. 

“Yup,” Dean agreed, nodding. 

“Very well then. Let me return the diary to its home, and we’ll book you a date…to see Annalise.”


	2. Lemon

Dean’s return to the Lawrence Library had absolutely nothing to do with lavender cardigan man, whose name he still didn’t know. Nothing at all. Clearly, he just needed somewhere to work on his thesis—somewhere that wasn’t the cramped apartment he shared with Sam (who appeared to have finally ditched Ruby at Dean’s insistence, though somewhat reluctantly). He’d been sulking around the apartment for two days, his hulking silences taking up even more space than his gargantuan frame, and Dean had suffered enough.

That’s all it was.

The fact that he bounded up the creaky, carpeted stairs, with their beautifully polished banisters, and on through the stacks of the second floor, carefully positioning himself at a table where he’d be able to see the most he could of the area, just to see who was about…that was neither here nor there, really. Dean slid his well-used canvas backpack onto the floor beside his chair. He’d had it since high school, purchased from an army surplus store, and despite its ratty appearance it hadn’t given up on him yet. He unbuckled the front and flipped open the top, loosening the drawstring beneath to begin rooting around in the TARDIS-like interior. Dean had never been a boy scout, but nonetheless he had the whole prepared-for-anything bit down. He carried snacks, he carried paper, he carried a swiss army knife, and string, and salt and pepper packets from those little plastic baggies of cutlery. He carried a spoon and a random magnet and a surprising number of elastic bands. There was loose change and old phone numbers and a water flask and something that Dean thought _ might _ have been a stray part from a vinyl record player. He wasn’t a _ hoarder. _He was organized. Just prepared.

That was a habit that he’d gained from his Dad, always being prepared. But it was his mom he studied for; she would have been happy and proud, he knew, to see him at college— engineering was what his dad had done and was a fairly safe bet for a career. Dean was good at engineering, he was great at constructing something from nothing—and he liked math, he really did. He wouldn’t say it often, but he did. Computers, too. Computer languages were like any other system, with rules and limits to determine and bend. Dean enjoyed the bending. But he’d always had this fear that if he started staring at numbers, he’d fall in, never to be seen again. They’d find him in a basement apartment, unwashed, hair down to his ass, muttering about Pi and the secrets of the universe. Basically, he’d end up like his second cousin Ash, and he wasn’t sure he was down for that. 

So he goofed off and indulged his nerdy passions and unless someone knew him pretty well, it would have been easy to assume that Dean didn’t care. 

Particularly from looking at the chaos of his backpack and work space.

The person looming over him, peering in thinly veiled horror at the amount of junk that Dean was piling onto the polished oak table just so that he could find his textbook, certainly seemed like he might think Dean just didn’t care. Dean looked up—hoping for one fleeting moment that he might finally get his eyes on the fabled Dragon—but found only the vaguely-alarmed-looking, softy librarian, instead.

“Hey, again. Don’t worry, I’m gonna pack it all back up. I just need my Handbook of Engineering Calculations. Love that one. Tyler Gregory Hicks is the man,” Dean said, nodding solemnly as he flopped the tan-colored reference book onto the tabletop.

“I—I am sure that he is,” the librarian said, sounding no less baffled by Dean than he had two days before. He was wearing a yellow and black cardigan this time, Dean noticed. There were a couple of dropped stitches above the right-hand pocket, just at Dean’s eye level as he straightened up. It was a lemony yellow rather than bright, but that didn’t stop the dude from looking like an incredibly handsome bumble bee. Dean realized he was staring at the dropped stitches and dragged his eyes back up to the librarian’s face, since he was still talking. “Your appointment isn’t until Saturday,” he said. 

“My appointment?” Dean blinked. He was momentarily reminded of those strange, “sexy bumble bee” costumes that could be obtained from party stores and online near Halloween. He’d hooked up with a girl in one of those costumes once, he was sure. Or had it been a ladybug?

“Your appointment to look at Miss Annalise Novak’s diary…” the librarian rumbled softly, sounding uncertain. “You—you made an appointment to come back on Saturday.”

“Yes,” Dean said, nodding slowly and secretly surprised—flattered?—that the fusty young librarian must have noticed, or perhaps even looked up, when Dean was going to return. Dean finished churning through his backpack and dropped it down to his feet, leaving just a few items spread out around him. He had the table to himself, as there were only three other people in the room, bent studiously over their own tables.

“It’s not Saturday,” the bumble bee pointed out.

“Ah, right. Yeah. I, uh—” Dean jerked his thumb toward his textbook, and the few stray elastic bands that littered the table. “—wanted somewhere peaceful to work on my thesis.” He patted the top of his notes pages and gave the librarian a little wink _ for the second time. _ What was wrong with him? That didn’t even make sense. He knew how to act normal, so what the hell was this?

The librarian opened his mouth as if he was going to say something—either about Dean’s reply or the wink—but then closed it, keeping his words to himself. It was probably for the best, as Dean had zero explanation for the latter. Apparently, a fancy building and sense of history turned him into some kind of flirty twink, which he was not. At all. 

The librarian took a step backward, away, and Dean suddenly found that he had the urge to keep talking (not that it was ever a problem for him to run his mouth), just so that he could keep him and his fuzzy sweater there a little longer.

“These chairs,” Dean stage-whispered across the space between them, wiggling firmly in his hard seat. “You need comfier chairs up here,” he went on, definitely trying to distract them both from whatever-the-hell attempt at getting a guy’s attention that wink had been. 

The other three patrons raised their heads, all glaring, but for whatever reason none of them shushed him. 

The librarian looked back at him with his mouth dropped, gaping openly. 

“The library is amazing, don’t get me wrong,” Dean pointed out hastily, “but were these chairs here when Charles built the place? I like an antique as much as the next Midwesterner. Interesting old things are my jam, but not when they involve my ass. It shouldn’t get this much abuse, not in public at least.”

Blue eyes widened silently and then—Dean would have sworn to a jury—dipped down, as if considering Dean’s ass, too. The cardigan man took a deep breath and brought his attention forcibly back up, before giving Dean a reproachful look.

“Ohhh…” Dean said out loud, grimacing slightly. His mouth was out of control. Apparently, it had decided that quiet, soft librarians were more fun to play with than husky jocks with commitment issues. When had _ that _ become a thing. “Uh, sorry.”

The ocean-blue eyes that seemed to pull Dean in with the raw power of a tide shifted around the table slowly, taking in the remnants of Dean’s bag exploration. Coming back to Dean, himself, those eyes raked up his frame intently, from scuffed boots up to hair that wasn’t so much artfully tousled as harassed by the wind through Baby’s open window. Self-consciously, Dean shifted, patting it down. He should’ve dressed up, maybe. Or at least worn a plain button down, not another plaid over a gray shirt with a print of the cover of _ The Sirens of Titan _ on the front. He wasn’t sure why, though. He wasn’t trying to impress someone whose cardigan might as well have been knit from cat hair, the amount it contained.

“I see,” the librarian said in his gravelly, low voice. “Well. You have your thesis… I should leave you be, then.” He did, making a tight turn and darting off into the stacks surprisingly quickly for a man carrying so much yarn with him.

For thirty minutes, Dean tried. Tyler Gregory Hicks was an excellent reference companion, but he didn’t much help when Dean didn’t know what he wanted to refer to in the first place. He found himself idly wondering what other kinds of engineering-adjacent goodies the Charles Shurley-Novak special collection library might hold, besides Annalise’s diary. He also wondered if the Dragon was around somewhere, and exactly how much yarn you needed to knit a bumble bee sweater, anyway. His eyes were repeatedly drawn to the lemon-yellow and black stripes that buzzed around the stacks tidying, and he had to keep swiftly darting his head down and pretending he wasn’t fascinated. 

He wasn’t fooling anyone. The three other library-goers began to eye him, then started packing up one by one, preparing to leave, and the librarian’s ears were a pretty shade of red. Dean was being creepy. He was acting like a weirdo. He resolutely stared down at his handwritten scrawl, determined to stop making the hot, fusty librarian uncomfortable.

He almost certainly had some kind of hipster partner, anyway. Someone who wore beanies and drank out of those glazed metal cups you used for camping and held his hand at the farmer’s market on Saturday mornings. Not that Dean was thinking much about it. He had calculations to…calculate. Yes. That was it.

Dean’s mind kept wandering and wondering, and he wasn’t getting much of anywhere, he realized with a long sigh.

Dean stopped attempting to write—in pencil, of course, some rules just made sense—and reached back down to his backpack near his feet. He had to have something in there that would fire his brain up a little. A pick me up. Tugging out a half-empty package of Twizzlers that he was pretty convinced had once belonged to his friend Garth, Dean plopped them on the table next to himself. The plastic gave a protesting crinkle as he pulled one of the strips of strawberry licorice out and poked the end between his teeth, sucking idly as he returned his gaze to his notes.

He remembered too late that this wasn’t the university library, where everyone snuck food without much thought for the rules and weren’t likely to be called out on it unless they started having three-course dinners with flaming desserts. This was definitely not that place.

Lemon Sweater Man homed in on the rustling plastic sound like only a librarian, or perhaps someone with the hearing of a bat, could do. His full attention came out from behind the stack and right next to Dean’s table, as up in his face as he could get without physically leaning onto the surface.

He towered. He glared. Dean was momentarily glad that the Dragon _ wasn’t _ around, if such a soft, quiet librarian could make Dean feel so small.

Dean very, very slowly pulled the long, soft candy from his mouth, passing it through his lips with a sticky slurping sound. He could feel his own eyes widening in a kind of panic. “There’s no sign telling me not to!” he suddenly blurted, as if _ that _ was the right thing to say. It got him nothing but a long blink of incomprehension. “I’m sorry,” Dean said, looking around as if somewhere to deposit the illicit candy would suddenly jump out at him. Seeing nothing, he shoved the whole thing in his mouth instead, speaking frantically around it. “At the university library people just—never mind, it doesn’t matter, is the Dragon here today? Is he going to send me out? Am I gonna get banned from both libraries—because I never even had sex in the stacks, you see, I didn’t even—”

One of the patrons who was shoving books back into her briefcase snorted loudly.

“Uhm,” Dean tried again, weakly. “I write better with sugar, I couldn’t focus…” he trailed off, awkwardly trying to shift the rest of the bag of soft licorice back into his backpack without drawing attention to it, but he was betrayed by the aggressive crinkling sounds. “It’s against the rules, I’ll put them back. Even though I’m dying here.”

Unthinking, Dean waved the candy package with his hand, as if to reinforce the severity of his sugar-slump.

The librarian’s gaze turned horrified as red candy pieces flapped back and forth out of the opening in the packaging.

“Oh—god, sorry,” Dean babbled again, wondering at what point the floor would open him up and swallow him, like in a cartoon. He moved to drop the candy back down, realized he still had Twizzler sweetness gunking up his fingers “Sticky fingers—look, if I go downstairs to eat, will you watch my stuff?”

Wow, Dean was a jerk. But even so, surely the “watch my stuff” covenant of libraries extended to the Charles J. Shurley-Novak private collection, too. Readers had to get a drink, or pee, and it was just the done thing—right? Surely even the Dragon, should he be around, wouldn’t scold Quiet Librarian and Dean for that. 

The nod was a relief, no matter how slow and confused it was, and still topped off with a mild glare.

“Awesome. Hey, the cute little café across the street—do they have good coffee?” Dean wasn’t using his library voice, just talking to the bumble bee cardigan man as if he was a human rather than a librarian, but once again not a single other patron shushed him. Rather, he got the impression that the hovering three—who hadn’t quite left, still—were waiting to see what happened to him.

Softy the Librarian opened his mouth twice before he made words come out. “Yes, the coffee is… good. Very good. But you should, uh, you shouldn’t just have sugar. To eat, I mean. If you can’t focus.”

One of the patrons that seemed to have paused in her evacuation gave a low gasp. Dean heard it, but he was too busy inserting his foot in his mouth again to pay her any further attention.

“Maybe you’re right. It’s not like I need to get any more hyperactive and weird in here, huh? Maybe, like, a banana muffin, or something? Don’t they have like, protein or whatever?”

“Potassium,” the dazed librarian quietly corrected.

“Right, right. That one. Oh god, are you a health nut, too? Are you completely ripped under that fuzzy thing? Ugh, just my luck.” Dean let out a loud, regretful noise, all sense of decorum gone the way of the first generation Shurley-Novaks, apparently. “I suppose you can’t take a break and come with me?”

Librarian blinked.

Suddenly, Dean heard himself, as if he was somebody else listening in, and realized exactly what he’d done—he’d _ asked out _ the librarian, the one he thought wasn’t his type, the one with the sweaters and the frowny brow and the eyes a small dinghy would get swept up in the endless tides of. _ Fuck, shit, balls. _ The librarian’s dropped-stitch cardigan was making Dean’s brain go as fuzzy as the wool. Oh, holy hell, the stitches were dropped… it was definitely handmade—his boyfriend had probably made it, his committed, perfect partner who visited with old ladies and did things like brunch. Obviously, obviously. Dean verbally clawed like he was trying to work his way out of a deep hole. Which he was, metaphorically speaking. 

“I definitely need coffee,” Dean managed to spit out, feeling his cheeks roar red, so hot his eyes felt like they were steaming. “Do you want me to bring you one?”

“Ripped?” There was far too long of a silence before the librarian echoed the simple word. “Wait, you—are you leaving?”

Not sure if he was relieved or put out that the softy sweater man hadn’t seemed to _ notice _ Dean’s terrible, botched, unplanned attempt to date him, Dean shook his head. Was it too much to ask that someone who worked in a library could be smart enough to understand that maybe Dean wasn’t only after sex with sporty jocks and overly-friendly blondes, and notice when he tried otherwise, unplanned or not? Of course, that was a lot to ask of anyone. Dean was nothing but a face to most people... his brother was the smart one, his mom was the kind angel of the family. Dean had to get by on cheeky grins and easy affection. It wasn’t the librarian’s fault he hated that. Why would anyone try to look past it? Dean only offered things that people never wanted from him. Loyalty. Devotion. Love. So he was doomed to a string of one-night stands. 

Whatever, it didn’t matter, and it was the librarian’s fault, anyway. Stupid, fuzzy, bumble bee librarian.

“Never mind,” Dean said. He made sure his spine didn’t relax as he turned, his shoulders didn’t droop down as he moved off toward the staircase.

The reprimand that stopped him was far gentler than Dean—or his gaspy patron audience, by the looks on their faces—would have expected. “If…perhaps, if you’re careful with your coffee when you come up the stairs, and mind the original carpet, you should be okay. You don’t have to leave.” There was a pause, as if the librarian was bracing himself. “But no books. No spills, no dribbles, no rings. You stay at the table.”

Dean turned back and saw the librarian looking very uncomfortable, so he grinned warmly at him, throwing yet another totally-uncalled-for wink. “Buddy, it’s cool. I won’t get you in trouble, okay. The Dragon will never know. Your job is safe in my hands, sir.”

As he practically pranced down the stairs, Dean’s heart felt oddly light. It wasn’t that he didn’t often get special treatment—he was actually quite prone to getting his way, often through the medium of cheeky grins, coy winks, and pure bullshit—but rarely did people just treat him like he was special from the beginning, what with his crumpled plaid and scuffed shoes. And somehow, amidst all the hush-hush talking and the dust-free warning signs and cordons of the hallowed library, this felt special. Incredibly fucking special, actually.

Dean darted on through the library. Obviously the “I’ll watch your stuff” covenant that existed in libraries was always subtly followed up by a silent “as long as you hurry back”, so he made haste down the creaky stairs and back to the first floor. The red-headed children’s librarian who’d made his appointment looked up as he passed, but he wasn’t interested in her—he was keeping an eye out for the Dragon, as if he was on some kind of covert mission. Not that he knew what the Dragon looked like. But Dean just _ knew _ he’d recognize him.

The café was, of course, the perfect little small-town gathering spot. It smelled of cinnamon and sugar, and the red and white awning that extended over the pavement shaded small bistro tables, all with second-hand books and boxes of playing cards stacked in the middle as if no one would even think of stealing them. Dean smiled at the absurdity of it before heading to the back, where a long counter separated him from a broadly smiling blonde lady. Her name tag said “Ellen” and her demeanor said, “make yourself at home, but no nonsense, now.”

“What can I get for you?” she asked, smiling more with her eyes than her mouth.

“Black drip to-go for me, and… What’s a good drink for a man who is too healthy to like sugar?”

She squinted at him awkwardly. “You don’t know what he likes?”

Dean thought about it. “Cats. Books, especially old ones. Pencils. Handmade things—local yarn probably. Sweater vests and sensible shoes. Maybe just a classic black coffee with… some other kind of sweetener? Do you have a natural thing?”

Ellen frowned, but something like recognition flashed in her eyes as she snorted at his description of “a natural thing”. She grabbed two paper cups and moved them onto the metal plate of the coffee maker. “You’re taking these into the library?” she questioned. “I hope you’ll be staying downstairs with them.”

Dean grinned, before leaning forward conspiratorially onto the counter. “You talking about the Dragon? I was warned, multiple times, but I haven’t met him yet. Good old James C. Novak, the fourth, right? He can’t be that bad, surely.”

She hesitated as she reached to fill the first cup. “He takes his work and the preservation of his family’s legacy pretty seriously. But as long as your respectful? No, he’s not bad at all. People just don’t understand him, I think.”

With two filled cups, Ellen turned back to Dean. “We’ve got agave, honey, Splenda, or I can just stick some vanilla in it. Which do you want?”

Dean grabbed a lid and secured it firmly to the top of his cup. He gave it an experimental, gentle squeeze, before deciding he was satisfied. “Honey, maybe?” he guessed, no idea what the librarian would really like, but his mind pulled toward the bumble bee sweater.

“Lid or not boy, Novak sees you with that anywhere near the books and you’ll be out on your tail,” Ellen cautioned.

Dean leaned in again, with another wink—what was _ wrong _ with him today—eager to share his little secret. “I’ve got an _ in _. The other librarian, the assistant up on the top floor, with the sweaters? He gave me the okay. That’s why I’m taking him this,” he said, gesturing to the remaining open cup of coffee that gently steamed on the counter.

There was something odd to Ellen’s smile as she gave Dean an appraising look and small nod. “Well, then. In that case, you’ll be wanting the honey, for sure. Cas likes honey in both his tea and coffee.”

“Aha!” said Dean smugly. “I was right.”

She gave him a knowing smile and reached into the pastry case next to the counter. Bagging two pieces of pie, to Dean’s utter delight, she slipped them over the counter. “I was about to throw them out anyway,” she said, something almost motherly in her tone. “Take a tray, too—the front desk at the library can return it to me.”

“Man, I love this library and this town,” Dean thanked her, delighted. “You’ll be seeing me again.”

He paid, tipped as well as he could afford to, and took his haul back across the perfectly painted pedestrian crosswalk—there were baskets of _ flowers _ on the light poles, Jesus. And they looked as if they didn’t have a single cigarette butt in them. Dean squinted up and down the street before he went under the metal archway that led into the library parking lot. This town had to be hiding its crack-heads and weird uncles somewhere, he decided. It had to have some; every town in America did. Hell, every _ family _ in America did. Places this adorable just couldn’t be real.

As Dean walked through the foyer to the first floor, carefully dodging children with his tray, the first-floor librarian looked up at him, wide-eyed. He grinned at her unapologetically and continued on to the stairs. He’d just put his foot on the third step when a large man, possibly in his early fifties and wearing a straining polo shirt with a tiny golf emblem, came barreling down the stairs. His heavy footfalls produced a cacophony of rude creaks that made even Dean frown on the old building’s behalf. Before him he held a can of soda, something purple and frankly dangerous-looking that sloshed and dripped stickily as he ran. Dean couldn’t help the look of mortified horror that he _ knew _ covered his face—he could feel it to his very core. The books! The carpet!

Slowly, Dean raised his eyes to the top of the stairs.

There stood the librarian, resplendent in lemon and black fuzz, his arms crossed and his face furious. When he spotted Dean, something in his expression froze, warring between anger and confusion. He deflated slowly as Dean approached, stepping back toward the large table, his eyes constantly on Dean’s tray.

Dean spotted his backpack and notes, exactly where he’d left them, still untouched, right down to the extraneous elastic bands. “I love this library,” he announced with a grin.

The librarian didn’t seem to know what to say to that, opening and closing his mouth a couple of times, his head tilting as the very tiniest of smiles tugged at his lips. He smoothed it out quickly, back to frowning at the tray. 

“No spills!” Dean said proudly, lifting the tray just to show off before he lowered it to the table. “Aren’t you proud of me? The lady at that coffee shop really knows her shit.” 

His words seemed to make the librarian—make Cas—relax slightly, and he nodded, reaching across to pull the tray that Dean had placed on the surface firmly into the center of the table, well out of knocking range. He looked uncertainly at the contents of the tray.

“Don’t worry, buddy.” There went Dean’s stupid eye again, with the winking. “I didn’t forget you. You got me, so I got you. The lady seemed to know what you liked, so…” he left the rest unsaid, reaching for the black coffee with honey and sliding it _ very _ carefully across the table instead, to where the librarian still stood. “I didn’t even know your name, Cas.” Dean said, quietly, his smile smaller. “Is that short for something?”

Cas lowered himself down into the chair opposite, something both reluctant and entirely helpless about the movement. “Castiel, actually. Biblical name…my family and friends shorten it, of course.” He picked up the warm paper cup, handling it as if it might bite, and carefully peeled off the lid to look down into the black liquid, suspicious. His eyes stayed there for a minute. “I didn’t think—I wasn’t sure if you knew my name,” he confessed quietly to the steam.

“I didn’t,” Dean said, grabbing the paper pastry bag from the tray. “You don’t wear a nametag or anything. Here,” he added, poking the bag across the table toward Cas. “There are slices of pie, too.”

“Pie? Cas rumbled softly.

“Apple, by the looks of it. Best kind. I promise we’ll clean up every last crumb, okay bud?”

For a long moment, Cas studied him. He was open about it, his head tilted as his intense eyes roved over Dean’s face, down his shoulders, across his chest, back up. He seemed to be solving some kind of puzzle, because when he straightened and spoke, reaching for the paper bag, there was a strange sense of finality to his words. “You don’t actually want to break the rules,” he said.

“Breaking the rules just a little is good for you,” Dean pointed out.

“I break the rules plenty,” Cas countered. “Just not in the library.” He took a sip of his coffee, his eyebrows rising just a fraction at the taste, as if he’d expected Dean to have it wrong. He said nothing.

They sat quietly, Dean scarfing down large bites of his pie and making inappropriate—unshushed—noises of appreciation, while Cas picked his into seven smaller pieces with strong, deliberate fingers. He licked each one, and Dean told himself he wasn’t watching, despite taking in the sight of each and every finger disappearing between Cas’s lips. 

Cas let out a series of heavy sighs, almost panting with delight at the soft sweetness of the cinnamony pie. The fuzzy dude seemed to appreciate a good slice of pie almost as much as Dean himself did.

Grinning impishly, Dean raised a chastising eyebrow across at Cas. “Now now, Cas. The atmosphere in here is very carefully controlled, you know. Got to watch the humidity, these books are _ fragile. _” Dean winked—oh hell, whatever, he’d lost count by then—as he coyly added, “So no heavy breathing, now.”

Cas froze, his ring finger still in his mouth, his eyes going wide enough that they caused Dean an evil chuckle.

“Wouldn’t want the Dragon overhearing us,” Dean added, with one final wink that must, by then, but the nail in the coffin of any dignity he’d once had.

Cas tilted his head to the left, his eyes on Dean. The expression would have been utterly adorable on one of the jerks Dean usually dated, he decided, the non-fuzzy-sweater kind of guy. On Cas, Dean felt oddly pressed down in his seat as he saw it, a strange buzzing behind his ribs. Slowly, a tiny smile curled just the one corner of Cas’s lips, and he let out a soft, huffing laugh. It was deep, and rumbly, and so quick it could have been missed—but it was the best sound Dean had heard him make.

“Quite right, Dean,” Cas agreed quietly. “Fragile books.”

“You know,” Dean said, as he sipped his way through the last of his scalding coffee. “Most people I meet have run for the hills by now, They were only stopping for the view, didn’t really want to chat.”

Castiel squinted firmly, frowning, a total lack of comprehension on his face.

“Just, you know—” Dean indicated his face with a shrug. “—couldn’t be anything more there, y’know?”

Again, Castiel was silent, though he gave a tiny nod as if he thought he might understand, but really wasn’t quite certain.

“Anyway,” Dean went on. “I thought you would, too, but you seem to just put up with me, as long as I keep my voice down. That’s kinda nice. Libraries, man. They bring out the better parts of people, I guess. Especially this one. It’s awesome. And you. I’m keeping you both.” He grinned wolfishly, taking his last giant gulp of pie.

Cas was also taking his last bite of pie as Dean spoke. Caught off-guard, he coughed, and a tiny spray of crumbs covered his bumble bee chest.

“Don’t worry,” Dean amended. “I’m not going to steal you away from your precious library. Or, uh, your partner,” he was compelled to hastily add. Wouldn’t want to give the wrong impression, even if there was a note of regret to his tone that he had _ not _ given permission for. To lighten the conversation back up he grinned and pointed to the librarian’s striped front. “You’ve got crumbs on your cardigan, Cas.”

Cas wiped his front—carefully onto the tray, of course—and gave Dean that puzzled-slash-frustrated stare he was becoming so familiar with.

Dean was motionless, not sure if he’d done something stupid, or said too much, or stupidly been more than the pretty face he was supposed to be. His eyes travelled down to his notes, remembering why he was there. Slowly, he reached to begin writing once more. He noted the tiny, approving look in Cas’s eyes as Dean’s fingers tightened around his pencil—one of his own, purchased and brought with him specially. No ink near the books.

“I don’t,” Cas said suddenly, before clearing his throat awkwardly. “Have a partner, I mean… a boyfriend.” He shook his head with a small frown, as if he couldn’t quite understand why on Earth Dean would have thought that he did. Pushing back his chair, he stood and buzzed off to the stacks without another word, leaving Dean to work.

Not that Dean had any chance of working, not when his brain insisted on spiraling around instead, wanting to know exactly _ why _ a man in a lemon and black striped, handknitted cardigan would feel the need to clarify his relationship status to Dean, of all people.

Dean poked at his notes and kept trying.

“Oh…” Dean whispered, aloud, after a few more minutes. _ Oh. _His skin was warm and buzzing, his mind strangely quiet.

_ Oh. Well. _

Exactly how hard was knitting, anyway?


	3. Periwinkle

Dean spent two more days alternating between worrying about his thesis and considering what Cas could have meant by telling him that. If anything. Was it anything? Was Dean just projecting? But then, Cas didn’t exactly throw around his words. He used only a few of them, releasing them sparingly, with thought. So surely, if he said something, it was because he meant to say it. It was because he’d  _ thought about it. _

And boy, did Dean think about it. The two days dragged, between school and work and screwing up sheet after sheet of wide-ruled thesis paper, aiming them for the trash can and often missing. 

Dean liked knowing where he stood, and right now he was standing in a construction zone without quite knowing what it was he was building. Did Cas  _ want _ to build something with him? This was oddly rare territory for Dean. People didn’t do that with him. They came, they  _ came _ , and then that was pretty much it; a pretty face, not a person. He chased them away, either with his guardedness about certain things or his excessive passion for others. There was no winning.

Could Cas be a win?

Did Cas  _ want _ Dean to ask him out? Did he want to ask Dean out?

Did  _ Dean _ want to? Cas was hardly the usual sort of man that set Dean’s heart aflutter. In fact, he usually wasn’t prone to flutter at all, except in his carefully guarded, picket-fenced daydreams.

But when Dean thought of Cas bending the rules for him in the library, making him special… he felt something in his chest that was suspiciously like a flutter. Dean hadn’t even tried; he hadn’t even ramped up the charm or batted his eyelashes to get any special treatment. He’d just been himself.

And Cas had given it to him anyway.

It’d been nice, Dean decided. Spending time with him. Sharing a quiet coffee. Was it too nice? Cas didn’t seem to be the confrontational sort, he was so quiet with his firm requests, like he didn’t want to make waves, but had to move the boat. He worked with the Dragon, though, of course, so he could probably get away with bending the rules when he wanted, but then had to enforce those rules the rest of the time. Cas seemed like a willing,  _ eager _ rule-follower, though, and Dean wasn’t sure how he felt about that part.

But then…he’d done it, too. He’d followed the rules, other than a few slip-ups, because he didn’t  _ want _ to damage the charming library and the precious books. That was why he’d stopped eating the candy, why he’d worn the gloves without question, why he’d brought his own pencil. He liked the books. He liked… Cas, he guessed. 

But Dean was a busy person. Blunt and too intense, far too intense for people who had no substance to their lives. His life had been hard, and it had molded him into someone who wasn’t so much ‘rough around the edges’ as simply formed of rough parts. He was selfish, too, sometimes—he walked all over people that weren’t brave enough to speak up, because he didn’t think. Dean knew that. So, he should probably stay away…right?

He shouldn’t think about heading back to the library, finding Cas, pushing him into some quiet corner and getting his hands under whatever knitted wonder the fusty librarian was wearing that day. He certainly shouldn’t think about leading him into the special collections room when the infamous James C. Novak IV wasn’t there and taking his time sucking his dick. “This is a humidity-controlled environment,” he’d remind him once more, sucking a mark into Cas’s throat. “Please, no heavy breathing.” And Cas would look him with that soft, annoyed frown, and Dean might finally get to understand how on Earth the quiet Cas got rowdy students and teens to be so well-behaved, because he still had not a clue.

If Cas could make  _ Dean  _ behave like that, well, Dean would practically beg for it. To be taken care of so softly, so firmly, that Dean might think Cas cared about  _ him _ like something special, something more, more even than the charming library and the old books… Dean would give a lot for that.

Which was why, after slamming down the hood of the last car he needed to fix up for the day, Dean stalked out of work at Singer’s Salvage yard and headed straight back to his crappy apartment (which still seemed to be too small for Sam’s post-Ruby bad attitude, but he’d get over it eventually, Dean reasoned). He showered methodically, grabbed clean clothes—though given Dean’s job and workshops at school, they were still grease-stained—and got into Baby as if it’d been his plan all along. As if he hadn’t been stalling for two days.

He headed into Lawrence, past the cute town square with the perfect fountain and the adorable coffee shop with the picturesque crosswalk outside, and into the concrete lot of the magnificent, red-bricked, Victorian library. Grabbing his backpack, he left Baby under the two-hour parking sign and moved past the charming colonial home with the pastel windows, and the bees, and the dove house. There appeared to be no one home, but the porch light was on and the gray cat sat in the rocking chair on the front, still judging.

He was wearing plaid again, and another shirt with a damn black stain on the front. He should have put more thought into this, picked out something nice to wear; he was clean, yes, but just clean didn’t feel enough for this library, somehow. But there he was. He hadn’t thought this through, despite overthinking everything. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the sort to let something go once he’d dug his heels in and begun, so he just tried to adjust his shirt so that the stain didn’t stand out. 

It was late; the library would be closing soon. So, Dean moved on past the fantastical, beautiful house that he would love to putter around on weekends. Routine repairs would become a gently familiar rhythm in the background of the blessed life he would clearly have if he could just find himself a house like that, complete with the perfect, and theoretical, family that would come with it. Still single, still living in a crappy apartment, and still without a dove house at all, Dean climbed the library steps.

He slowed. This library was a respectable place for respectable people. Not someone who was probably imagining something that wasn’t there and who still had very mixed feelings about knitted cardigans.

There was also still the chance that Cas wouldn’t even be here tonight. Perhaps he’d gone home, to a kitschy apartment perhaps, where he ate a simple spaghetti dinner alone with his ridiculously hairy cat called Miggles and wished someone like Dean would take him out to eat instead.

Which was ridiculous because Dean had to pay for school for himself and for Sam, so a night in with a frozen burrito—or a homemade burger, if it was payday—was about as far as Dean was gonna stretch. Which sounded almost as boring as the simple spaghetti dinner, now he was thinking about it.

Was that part of the problem, Dean wondered? Was that why Cas was single? Did his knitted sweaters and quiet nights in look boring, from the outside?

Dean was still frozen on the steps, realizing that perhaps… perhaps he’d had it all wrong. Perhaps it wasn’t boring. Oh, maybe alone... But shared with someone else who would enjoy the simple things with you? Perhaps it wasn’t.

Perhaps Dean just had it wrong all this time.

Cas was quietly intense, where Dean was loudly so.

Could they be intense together? Did two sparks cancel each other out, or did they make a flame?

He was about to reach for the heavy brass door handle, praying that they hadn’t yet closed, when the heavy, deep-green door swung suddenly outwards, all but knocking into him.

“Oh!” said Anna Novak, immediately apologetic. “Sorry. I was looking for a misplaced backpack, one of the kid’s mothers called…” She peered around the empty steps and sighed. “This happens at least twice a week.”

Dean grimaced in sympathy. “Yeah, I bet, with all those kids. Didn’t see one in the parking lot, either, sorry.” 

She nodded and eyed him appraisingly. “Get in quick, if you’re coming. We’re about to close.”

“Oh, yeah—yeah.” Dean said rapidly as he darted inside, following her through the door and across the deep, plush, emerald carpet that led up past the circulation desk to the stairs. The smell of the library was familiar to him by then; something warm, something like old paper, and something like Lysol. He’d only been there twice, and yet the charming red-brick building felt like home. It felt like there was already a small part of him embedded here.

“You’re early,” Anna said, moving behind her desk.

“Early?”

“For your appointment,” she reminded him. “It’s not until tomorrow.”

“Oh—” Dean shifted. “—right. That. Well, actually, I didn’t come for the diary, this time.”

Anna smiled, and it was crooked and warm. “Right. Well, he’s upstairs,” she said, not even pretending that she didn’t know why Dean had come. Had he been that obvious? Oh God, he probably had. He should leave, he should flee. “He’s not in the best mood, I’m afraid. His least favorite person came in today,” she finished conspiratorially. 

Dean froze. He hadn’t been thinking about it, but—but. He turned back to Anna, his eyebrows lifting of their own accord as he whispered loudly, “The Dragon? Oh my god, is the Dragon here?”

Anna’s forehead creased, and she looked utterly bewildered. “Yes…?” She replied, sounding so confused that Dean thought she might need to sit down—but he didn’t have time to check what had her befuddled. There was a Dragon to encounter.

He spun and moved on swift feet, as quietly as the creaks and groans of the aged Victorian library would allow. He raised one hand to his shoulder, wrapping his fingers more firmly around his backpack strap, pulling down as if he was headed into rocky terrain on a hike and his bag could slip at any moment. 

He was halfway up the noisy old stairs, admiring the ornate, exquisitely polished bannister, when the voice carried down. 

“You come here, to  _ my _ library, with that attitude?” Quietly furious, the words floated down the stairs and punched Dean straight in the chest, without even being loud enough to obscure the creaks of the steps. The husky whisper was sharper than a blade.

The deep, epic _ , sotto voce  _ verbal thrashing that someone was getting seemed to be taking place near the special collections library. 

Another voice, more distant, made a feeble attempt at a response; but whatever it was they tried to say was silenced by a snarl, a hushed  _ growl, _ that cut them off entirely.

“I don’t want to hear your pathetic excuses. You knew the rules. You chose to break them. You are no longer welcome here.”

Dean’s heart crashed against his ribs as he rounded the top of the stairs, homing in on the biting, but quiet, commotion. He slowed down, blinking, as Cas came into view. He was wearing an honest-to-god sweater vest, in a light, bright blue that had a hint of purple to it—what did people call that color? Whatever it was, it was kinda fuzzy. Standing with his spine ruler-straight, Cas managed to tower over the man standing in front of him, despite the guy being pretty much Dean’s height. The man hunched in on himself, taking a step back, even as he tried to argue stubbornly. 

“It’s ridiculous that you’d make me wait,” he said, his chin raised defensively. “I don’t have time to wait for official scans—you know who I am!”

Cas drew his eyebrows together scornfully, a look of such disgust across his face that Dean held his breath. Cas’s eyes, such a beautiful blue, looked like a tropical storm growing in the Atlantic, a hurricane about to crash onto the most populous coast it could find. He looked the man—in his early fifties, Dean guessed—all the way up and down, from the tips of his pointy dress shoes, right past his burgundy shirt and gray suit combo and small glasses, to his wild, curly, white hair.. “I know exactly who you are,” he growled. “You’re just like every other big-headed local name who thinks they can stroll through these doors and  _ take _ , get exactly what they want from this place, and that my rules don’t apply to them. 

“You wait. You wait because that local census journal is over a hundred years old, you wait because it’s delicate, you wait because you  _ will _ have some respect.” 

Dean remembered to take a breath, but only one, before Cas started up again, giving the man not a moment to react.

“But you don’t have any respect, do you? So, you took a  _ picture _ .” Cas lowered his voice impossibly further. “You used the  _ flash. _ ”

Dean clasped his hand over his mouth.

“I needed—” The man began, stupidly—clearly, he had noticed the hand knit sweater vest that Cas was sporting over his blue tie, and he’d seen a pushover, rather than the guardian of an entire family’s legacy.

Much like Dean had.

Cas took one step forward and the man wilted, seeing his mistake. Cas—or whoever the heck this was, James C. Novak IV, the Dragon, the monster in the library halls—lifted one eyebrow. “You didn’t have time to wait for a simple scan, Curtis? I’d have thought you’d have had plenty of time. I read your last book, and you  _ certainly _ didn’t spend it on writing that. I finished it in one go, a feat that took all of two hours, even with breaks so I didn’t choke on your run-on sentences. At least when they make a movie from it, the actors won’t have to spend much time learning complex lines, as your dialogue could have been written by a three-year-old. You spent too much time on your pointless mystery, planting clues so heavy-handedly that the reader trips over them while searching for a single shit to give about any of your characters.”

Every word was ice-cold brutality, and Dean couldn’t look away.

“In ten years—” Cas was still advancing, and the older writer was scurrying for the library stairs, where Dean stood. “—copies of your books will line thrift store shelves, and we’ll regret that we ever dared call Dan Brown a hack. They’re forgettable, no matter how much money you make.”

Dean trembled in excitement as Cas poured out his white-hot truth, eviscerating the bad writer with a dark, angry glee. Anyone dumb enough to risk damaging an antique book from the Charles J. Shurley-Novak special collection, Dean decided, probably did write bad characters.

“I’ve been on bestseller lists! I’m a regular patron!” Bad Writer babbled, hurtling along the stacks for the stairs, despite his words. “You can’t ban me!”

“Watch me.” Cas pushed up his glasses, and Dean almost expired on the spot.

“You think because your family owns this library you can do whatever you want—” Bad Writer complained, though he didn’t slow his hustle toward the stairs.

“I  _ know _ I can,” Cas responded, raising both eyebrows. “In addition to owning the building, I am the one  _ in charge _ of the Novak Library. You’re not to set foot it ever again. Now get out.”

The snark. The sheer intelligence. The deep voice. The commanding, authoritative tone. Dean felt something inside him go weak—legitimately weak—and he stumbled a little, reaching out to grab the bookshelf he had finally reached, hoping to sneak behind it and not disrupt the argument.

Cas and Bad Writer Curtis both turned to look at Dean as a large reference tome tilted, knocking its neighbor and causing a dangerous domino-ripple along the entire shelf. The writer took his moment to escape, dashing down the stairs with an irritated mutter. 

Cas went very still.

Part of Dean hoped that Cas would blush at being revealed to be the Dragon, but part of him hoped he’d turn that icy fury on Dean, lashing him with a verbal whip that would bruise him for days. He had no idea what it meant that he wanted both of those things, but he did. Son of a bitch, he really did. He wanted every aspect, the whole package. They’d move in together, Cas would fill Dean’s closet with his sweaters and Dean would tear his hair out to find a good job, or maybe say fuck it and go get a doctorate instead, and they’d get married the following summer when college classes were done and the reference library work would be quieter for Cas. Sam could be their flower girl.

Dean realized he was breathing hard and closed his mouth with a snap.  _ This is a low-humidity environment. _

Cas looked at him for a long minute, frozen, before settling his shoulders back, standing tall.

Dean wanted to see more of this Dragon. 

“All he did was take a picture,” Dean whispered, smiling, knowing perfectly well how much damage light exposure could cause to aged parchment. Knowing perfectly well that wasn’t even the point; Cas was mad about the potential damage, sure, but more than that he was mad about the principle of the thing. He didn’t say any of that though, just so he could watch.

Cas’s eyebrows rose, though the corners of his eyes seemed to slip with  _ disappointment.  _ “Oh,  _ Dean, _ ” he said, sounding so let down Dean’s heart leaped and got lodged somewhere under his fourth rib. “I never thought that you would be one to agree with him.”

He said it like he’d imagined. Like he’d thought about it, about having this conversation with Dean. 

Dean smirked.

“I thought you were—” Cas began, before his mouth tightened into a thin line. “My family’s library is not to be sullied.”

“Sullied,” Dean echoed softly under his breath. “Oh my god.  _ Sullied. _ Jesus, buddy. It’s an awesome library, okay, but it’s not the Great Library of Alexandria, or the British Library, or St. Petersburg.”

Cas let out a low gasp, before settling back into his frown. “ _ Buddy _ ,” he repeated, pointed, displeased. “He could have ruined the book if I hadn’t been here, you know, all for the sake of his awful  _ airport fiction.” _

Oh, fuck, he was such a Dragon. Dean’s insides curled with delight, and he took a tiny step forward. He’d never had to  _ work _ to piss someone off before, usually Dean Winchester could do that by breathing.

“I bet his book isn’t that bad.”

“You are infuriating. You’re obviously trying to make me angry deliberately, and I can’t begin to understand  _ why _ .” The color was draining from Cas’s face, his lips thinner by the moment. He held up a hand, one finger raised, as if he was going to begin to count off a list. “As for Curtis, firstly, his mysteries are—”

“Holy shit, buddy,” Dean interrupted, gasping, taking one more step forward, a delighted grin across his features. “You care way too much.”

Cas’s tanned forehead was bunched, a lump of skin forming above his nose that Dean wanted to be a lot closer to. “Buddy. You keep calling me  _ buddy _ .” He sounded so very displeased by that, that Dean couldn’t resist a snarky response.

“Well I guess I missed the part where you introduced yourself as  _ James C. Novak, IV _ .” Dean pursed his lips, eyebrows raised, and waited.

Cas stopped. Froze. 

Cas—James—turned his eyes to the side, looking over the bookcase with the toppled reference tomes as if he wasn’t even seeing them. “My name is James Castiel Novak. Friends call me Castiel, or Cas, because there are no less than four James’ in the family, just like there are three Annas.” He said very quietly, his tone weighty with embarrassment. “It’s been that way ever since I was a kid.” He shifted his eyes slowly back to Dean, and they contained a look that Dean didn’t quite understand. “When you first came, you didn’t know. You only talked about the Dragon. You—you said I was a monster. Then”—Dean began to make a small noise of apology, bravado gone, but Cas talked right over him—“I thought you’d figured it out. Thought that you…didn’t mind. You bought me coffee.”

Silence fell. Cas wasn’t pleading, exactly, but his anger had dissipated somewhat, and Dean was wholly certain that if it hadn’t been for the priceless, charming carpet, Cas would have been awkwardly scuffing the toe of one shoe. At least his mortification at being found out seemed to have temporarily overridden his annoyance at Dean goading him.

“This place is amazing, Cas.”

Cas’s eyes lifted back from where they’d slid down the bookcase. “You said—”

“I said it wasn’t Alexandria. And, come on, it isn’t. But it is awesome. I’d have kept coming back here—” Dean took a deep breath. “—even if I hadn’t been fascinated by the weird librarian in the fuzzy sweaters.”

Periwinkle. The sweater vest was definitely periwinkle—a kind of blue that had the hintiest hint of purple, now that Dean was close enough to it to tell. Close enough to see that the wool had a soft, fluffy quality to it, like baby yarn or something for textured scarves, or—

“You don’t like my sweaters,” Castiel said suddenly, his shoulders tense and angry once more. “I see the way you look at them, look at me—I don’t understand you.”

Dean nodded slowly in agreement. “Yeah, I don’t understand me, either. I was wrong about a lot of stuff.”

“But you’re  _ smart. _ ” Cas practically whined. “You’re passionate about things. You came to look at the diary just—just because you wanted to. But then, if I’d told you no that first day… you’d have still stayed, wouldn’t you? Stayed and studied and just…learned.”

Dean moistened his lips, and Cas took a step forward, boxing Dean into the bookcase.

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Dean croaked. “I think I would have.”

“You—you aren’t like the others that come here, and I don’t understand you.” Cas practically whispered. “You’re different. You didn’t just arrive here and take what you wanted… you actually appreciated this place.”

Dean smiled widely, his best, most charming smile, directing the full power of it at James Castiel Novak IV. He liked that. He liked being someone that Cas thought was different. “I mean…I still broke your rules. I ate candy, remember.”

Cas’s eyes dropped to Dean’s lips, as if he was remembering him sucking on the candy, too. 

Dean’s face heated from the inside. “Fuck,” he said, out loud.

“There might be other library patrons here,” Cas said, deathly quiet, one eyebrow raised. “Watch your language.” He was so stern about it, though unless the patrons were hiding (from the Dragon, most likely) there wasn’t anyone else in the building, except perhaps Anna down on the first floor. 

Dean closed his mouth firmly.

“See,” Cas whined again. “You  _ listen _ . You respect the important rules, not because you want to obey, but because you understand them.”

There was a breath of silence, an awkward pause, and Dean wasn’t sure what to say. The more he thought about it, the worse it got. So, in the fashion he appeared to have solidly adopted lately, he steamrolled straight onward. 

“I’m sorry I said that stuff about him taking a picture being okay, and that his book wasn’t so bad,” Dean said quietly. “I bet his books are awful. You’re just really, really hot when you’re mad, all riled up and possessive of your library...”

Castiel’s chest pushed into his, strong and almost reprimanding. “There are other ways to get me riled up. I prefer those.”

“God,” Dean breathed out, finally, completely done. “Just fucking kiss me, already. You want to, right? Because I want you to. No special permission needed, no appointment. You can check me out right this second.” Dean was babbling a little, not quite sure where he was even going with the ill-timed library puns, but it didn’t matter, because Cas’s hand was coming forward, scooping under his jaw, and then…

Soft and dry, becoming warm and wet as they pressed closer, Cas’s mouth dragging against his, pushing Dean back against the bookcase and parting Dean’s lips with his tongue. Cas’s hands were absolute, certain, going directly to Dean’s waist and jaw, pinning him to the shelf. It was a slow heat, heavy and full of attention—until Dean made a weak noise and reached out, getting a handful of the goddamn fucking sweater vest.

It was soft, and fluffy, and tangled in his fingers like a blue cloud. Cas was solid beneath it, as he’d thought. Ripped.

Dean’s mind went fuzzy and quiet. He wasn’t hearing wedding bells, no, he was hearing heavy breathing, the whir of the air purifier in the private collection, and the distant sound of the front door locking, all of them barely audible over the way his heartbeat started thumping in his ears.

Dean would be lint-rolling cat fur from his plaid for days. “Yes,” he agreed, breathless. “I’ll stick to other ways of getting you worked up from now on.”

He shuddered at how slow Cas’s mouth was, how it trailed across his skin like Cas was taking  _ care _ with it, like he took care with everything. He kissed Dean like he’d thought about it. Like he thought about everything. Slow kisses like these weren’t supposed to be overwhelming, but theirs were making Dean weak and soft, anyway.

Cas’s hand rose from his hip, gliding under the edge of Dean’s shirt—to the left of the grease stain—and strong fingers splayed out across Dean’s abs. He moaned, and Cas bit softly into the flesh of his shoulder at the sound. Dean could feel Cas’s stubble on his neck. He could feel Cas’s thigh pressed to the outside of his. He could feel the wool of Cas’s vest beneath his fingers, a world of opportunity beneath. It was slightly warm from his body, the heat of him seeping through the stitches. Cas’s hand at Dean’s stomach slipped downwards, stopping with his fingers just curling past the waistband of Dean’s jeans, the tips  _ just _ dipping into his underwear. Cas’s head lifted, his lips coming back to Dean’s with a soft, questioning peck.

There could be only one answer to the question. Dean lifted his hips, pressing back, finally getting one hand under the stupid sweater where it should be. The other came up to Cas’s loose tie, managing to grab a fistful through the wool. Cas gasped into him, giving as much as he was taking, and Dean loved the taste of his attention. It took only a brief movement for Cas to unbutton Dean’s jeans and get his hand inside, stroking his thumb over the tip of Dean’s cock through the fabric of his underwear.

Cas looked down, watching his hand move with the same intense fascination that he seemed to give to so many things—his books, his library, and now Dean. Dean bit his lip at the sensation, pressing his head back into the bookcase. 

So what, he knocked over another few books. Cas didn’t even flinch. They could pick them up later.

Dean could feel the warmth of Cas’s hand even through the material of his boxer-briefs, but it already wasn’t enough. “Yeah,” he encouraged, “yeah, please—touch me Cas, please.”

It seemed that Cas could take orders as well as give them, or perhaps it was the “please” that got Dean his way. Cas brought his eyes back up from where he still watched his hand, latching them onto Dean’s, and kissed into Dean deeply once more as he tugged his jeans and underwear down to the top of Dean’s thighs in one go. Dean felt a warm—incredibly warm—and gentle hand reach to scoop under his balls, lifting them over the fabric, freeing them. Cas’s hand stayed, rolling them softly in his palm like he was weighing them and enjoying them, too, as much as everything else. 

Dean could feel the ridge of a wooden shelf, cool to the touch, pressing into his exposed ass cheeks; should anyone come up the stairs, they’d be getting an eyeful of  _ un _ tasteful side cock, for sure. He couldn’t find it in himself to give a single shit as Cas’s warm palm was exchanged for softly exploring fingers, trailing and massaging gently across the soft skin of his sack and the base of his cock, fingering the wiry, dark-blond hair there.

Biting back a gasp, Dean closed his eyes at the sensation; it was a touch filled with meaning, with  _ care _ , not a route to a destination; it was the joy and want of the journey, and Dean loved it. Cas’s second hand wrapped around Dean’s length, slow and firm. Exhaling roughly, he brought his head forward once more, raising one hand from Cas’s tie to hook under his jaw, encouraging the librarian’s lips back toward his. “Yeah, that’s right—that’s perfect. God, Cas, your hands feel amazing…”

Dean could feel Cas smile against his lips, and then they were kissing again, languid and passion-filled, like no mere hasty fumble should be. Cas tasted of sweet tea and faint mint, and Dean’s nose filled with the soft, musky smell of something cinnamony overlaying some kind of hippy deodorant.

Cas began to jack Dean firmly but slowly,  _ pulling _ pleasure steadily from him rather than wringing it out. He looked down again when their kiss broke, watching the glossy shine of Dean’s wet, pre-come-coated head peek out from his fist on every downstroke. Dean’s breath was becoming more labored, his heartbeat sounding in his ears once again. Cas’s dark, fascinated blue eyes were wide, his pupils bigger than Dean had ever seen them as his gaze danced all around Dean’s face. Reading him, taking in every little sign Dean must have been giving, Cas began to speed up. He pressed forward, ducking his lips down to Dean’s neck and trailing his way across the skin there so slowly, totally at odds with the increasing pace of his hand. His mouth reached Dean’s collarbone and he latched on, pulling a moan from Dean that he only just managed to acceptably quieten. Even as quiet as they were being for the activity they engaged in, Dean thought, they were still far too loud for a library.

Cas’s hands were masterful, strong and tanned, and Dean got almost as much pleasure from the sight of Cas jerking him off as he did from the feel of it. Tension pulled through the muscles under his bellybutton, radiating down deep, a kind of warm, fuzzy feeling that was expanding and increasing by the second, like static trapped in his abdomen. “Cas—” he gasped softly, tucking his head down. 

“Is that good, Dean?” Cas rumbled softly, and his voice felt so good, up close. His chest reverberated with it, the sound bouncing up through the echo chamber of his throat until he released it right next to Dean’s ear. “Are you close? Are you going to come for me, Dean?” 

His name falling from Cas’s lips in that husky, heavily aroused voice pushed Dean right over, his balls tightening and his breath catching behind his sternum. “Ahh—ahh—yes, yes, Cas—” He leaned back into the bookcase, arching, with Cas leaning over him.

Teeth met the flesh of Dean’s neck once more, higher this time, sucking something possessive onto Dean’s skin as he came, something that would be red within minutes and bruised for days.

Cas lifted Dean’s shirt as he spilled, keeping it clear of the spurts of hot come that splattered Dean’s soft stomach. Thoughtful, even when Dean could feel the warm length of him pressed up against Dean’s thigh through his slacks, fully hard just from giving Dean pleasure.

Dean’s breathing came in gasps for a moment and Cas kissed him through it, lips trailing up from his neck to softly journey around his face, lazily coming back to his mouth as if they had all the time in the world.

But they didn’t, and so Dean slid down the hand he still had on Cas’s muscled stomach, tugging his belt forward. “Your turn,” he breathed.

Cas nodded his agreement into the side of Dean’s face. Dean could feel his breath puffing between them, hitting Dean’s cheek, already elevated. He drew back slightly, giving Dean room to work his belt buckle, the only sound their breathing and the soft  _ chink _ of metal. Dean undid the belt, and then slid down Cas’s zipper. He slipped one hand inside his navy slacks through the gap, leaving them buttoned for just a moment as he explored. 

Cas was rapt, his eyes downturned as he watched Dean’s hands disappear into the fabric. He gasped deeply but quietly as Dean gave him a firm squeeze, feeling the heft of his thick shaft in his hand. He was staring, his mouth parted just the tiniest fraction—the intensity of his gaze was so much, like he’d thought about it, fantasized about it, wanted it…wanted  _ this  _ in some way, and now he was blown away by the true sight.

“Dean…” he let out breathlessly as Dean finally went for the button, freeing him from the confines of his simple, dark boxer shorts. Dean didn’t pull his pants down, leaving them open, and Cas’ red, fat dick stood ready for attention right through the gap. Dean couldn’t help but study him for a moment; straight, heavy, and smooth, not overly veiny or tilted to the side—Dean thought that it looked like a dick  _ made  _ for deep, hard fucking and God, he hoped that, by some miracle, someday, he’d get to experience it himself. But right then he had a job to do, and Cas was looking at him desperately, almost pleading as he leaned forward to press his forehead to Dean’s own. His breath hitched beautifully as Dean began to stroke.

“I got you, Cas,” Dean soothed, unable to help the grin tugging his cheeks up. “I got you, there we go…”

“Fuck—” Castiel squeezed his eyes tightly shut, hissing gently as Dean sped up his motions. 

Dean moved his head, tilting it to the side so that his lips brushed Cas’s ear. “Shh, Cas—mind your language in the library.”

The tiny, desperate laugh that Castiel breathily emitted was gorgeous. Dean wanted to keep it, but brief as it was, he settled for hoping to hear more of it. 

“That’s it, Cas,” Dean purred in delight as Cas’s hips began to jerk, desperately seeking to thrust into something. Dean tightened the tunnel of his hand just a fraction, holding still for just a moment so that Cas could fuck forward. It earned him a sigh of relief, and a kiss so soft it made Dean’s heart squeeze.

How could he kiss so soft, with a body so hard?

Dean raised his other hand up, sliding under the sweater so that he could find a nipple to thumb, the wool bunching up at his wrist. It wasn’t itchy, this well-worn, carefully chosen yarn that cocooned everything it touched. Dean didn’t like it, he reminded himself—he didn’t, he didn’t.

Cas gave a soft growl, his body clenching and tightening. His eyes were wide open again, searching Dean’s face, his lips parted.

“Getting there, Cas?” Dean questioned, and he received a nod in response. He smoothly transitioned up a gear, planting his feet and twisting his wrist as he sped up his tugging.

Cas shifted, raising his hands to the bookcase right above Dean’s shoulders, gripping onto the edge of the shelf and bracing himself. 

“Yeah, fuck, come on Cas—let go.”

Cas’s mouth opened wider still, his hips jerking and a low growl of pleasure beginning to rumble from him, so Dean dove forward, swallowing it with his mouth. Dean arched his own body into Cas’s, guiding him toward Dean’s wet, messy stomach—he didn’t care where Cas came, as long as he did, and as long as it was absolutely nowhere near that beautiful periwinkle wool.

Cas gasped and shuddered; Dean’s name pressed into his own mouth as Cas released, hard. Dean felt Cas’s come, hot against the cooling, clinging drips of Dean’s own, as Cas spurted three, then four, times onto his stomach.

“Oh,  _ oh,  _ Dean…” Cas said, not a plea or a moan, just an expression of pleasure and satisfaction. 

It was so hot, the way Cas responded to him, the way he moaned Dean’s name across the small gap of hot air between them. Dean was panting again himself, spent but still hopelessly turned on. Cas swallowed the last of both their noises, their chests heaving in surprising synchronicity as they slowly stepped apart. 

Fuck, that had been awesome. Dean let himself catalog the movement of every finger as Cas straightened his sweater vest, smoothing the stitches down as he tidied himself. He watched the movement of Cas’s fingers as he re-clasped his belt, only raising his eyes back to Cas’s face when he was entirely done, looking unruffled once more. Dean gave him a smile—one that he hoped said everything from “ _ that was awesome”  _ to “ _ let’s do that again”  _ to “ _ go out with me”  _ to “ _ is periwinkle a good color for weddings?” _

Dean needed words, not thoughts in his head. Actual words. Ones that could communicate how quietly, slowly, world-changing that had been, without sounding so pathetic that Cas would send him packing the way of Curtis and his terrible mysteries. Cas straightened up, stepping back slowly, and Dean already mourned the loss of warm breath and fuzzy wool. His eyes, though, were still right there, still heavy on Dean, blue and intense.

Perhaps that was just how Cas was, Dean thought. Intense. Possibly when he loved something, he was just passionate about it, like Dean was. Or, y’know, something that wasn’t—that didn’t sound…like _ that.  _ Dean wouldn’t say that. But maybe Cas could be intense about Dean.

Or not. Dean caught himself, the air still and quiet between them as he considered. Dean was a handful. He broke the rules sometimes, unless they were, well, good ones. He had  _ stuff  _ in his life, things that he wanted a quiet reprieve from. But he’d also annoyed Cas on purpose, just hoping to get a taste of the Dragon, even while building picket fences in the back of his mind, and he figured that made him a bit of a mess, at the very least.

A literal mess. His t-shirt was entirely stuck to his stomach.

“Do I have to make an appointment to see you again?” The words burst out of Dean unbidden, accompanied by a teasing smile, as most of his deflections were. “Do I need special permission to borrow you, or can I keep you now?” he asked. 

Cas blinked, a dazed motion that was much longer than it should have been. 

“Ah, right,” said Dean, embarrassed. “I got it wrong, didn’t I? Sex is one thing, no complaints about a pretty face, but people don’t want more. I’m not relationship material, I get that—even if it’s a pattern my brain seems to refuse to learn. I’m sorry, buddy. My bad.”

He could feel the stillness in Cas’s muscles, the surprise. Dean rode it out with an uncertain, apologetic smile, thinking about how he could now extract himself and escape off to the bathroom. His stomach was getting  _ really _ sticky.

Cas cleared his throat. His smile was uncertain, in turn, a small wave of nerves moving visibly up his spine and settling at the back of his neck, where his hand rested, rubbing it awkwardly. “I—that didn’t put you off?” Cas asked quietly, his other hand waving to where the long-forgotten Bad Writer had once stood, being knocked down many pegs by the Dragon. Before Dean could even respond, Cas blinked, using the same hand to gesture down at himself. He encompassed his fuzzy sweater, every hand-knit stich, and his sensible shoes. “ _ This _ doesn’t put you off?”

“Why?” Dean asked blithely, his old habit of “ _ Deflect! Defend! Protect!”  _ surfacing. It was easy to pretend that things didn’t bother him, pretend that he wasn’t on the edge of his metaphorical seat with nerves. “Did you make it yourself?”

Cas’s eyes were wide. There was something…fearful, Dean decided. Afraid that for some reason, the yarn was what was going to make or break this. His yarn, for sure.

“Oh,” Dean said. Well, shit. He really had made it himself. Which made sense, Dean realized—there was no organic-kale-eating boyfriend at home making them for him, after all. They’d covered that already. Dean’s fingers twitched, the memory of fuzzy wool in his hands making his palms warm. The blue, that bumble bee cardigan, this lavender…Cas had chosen all of them himself. Made them himself. They were tiny pieces of who he was. 

Dean must be really sick of smart, sporty jocks and quick-living brunette women, much more so than he thought. Because he wanted this soft, domineering dork, instead.

Cas closed in a little, moving back, and Dean reached out to grab something—anything—ending up with a handful of periwinkle wool at Cas’s hip.

“Because,” Dean said carefully, trying his best not to be too eager. “I think I could be down with that, y’know. Yeah. Like…the care it takes to, uh, to do that stuff…” Dean trailed off, his turn to raise his hand to the back of his neck and rub, though his other hand stayed tangled desperately in Cas’s sweater, like a lifeline. “You’re pretty intense, man.”

“People do say so,” Cas agreed. “I, uh, I’m never sure whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, when people say that. ‘Intense,’ I mean.”

Dean’s eyes lifted up to meet Cas’s, their stare filling the air around them with a strange tension.

“It’s a good thing,” Dean clarified softly. “Or at least, I like it. It works for me… all of it. The soft librarian fuzz and the scary Dragon.”

Cas opened his mouth once, twice, before forming a tiny scowl. “I don’t scare everyone away. Only the miscreants.”

“Miscreants!” Dean exclaimed happily. “Oh, you’re too much. I swear, I’d whisk you away right now and keep you if I didn’t know much you loved this library.” He was barely aware of the words coming out of his mouth, laughing as they buzzed and flew out forcefully from somewhere within his ribcage.

“I do love the library,” Cas said, more confident, almost amused. “But there’s room for more… in my life, I mean. If you wanted.”

Their eyes locked. Held. Both fully aware of it, it seemed, this time.

After a minute more of the staring, Dean felt himself beginning to flush, so he dropped his eyes. It would have been a demure look, perhaps, on anyone other than him. “So,” he said heavily, eyeing his toes. “How about starting with coffee? You could get one with me now, if you wanted. Outside.”

Cas looked pointedly at Dean’s shirt.

“After, I uh… I have a spare shirt in my car, probably.” Dean grimaced.

“The coffee place across the street is closed by now on weeknights,” Cas said in response.

“Oh,” Dean said. Okay. Maybe he was reading Cas wrong, then. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done that. His eyes stayed down, and he moved his hands to button his jeans back up, tugging his t-shirt—now with two entirely different types of stain—down to straighten it out. 

“But I live next door,” Cas added. When Dean looked up again Cas was grinning—fully grinning—wide and gummy and warm. It was the biggest expression that Dean had seen on the soft librarian, and he allowed the force of it to dazzle him for a moment.

“Oh,” he said again, with more meaning. Then, “Wait—next door?”

Cas nodded. “Yes.”

Dean looked down, taking in the periwinkle, remembering the lavender and the lemon-and-black stripe. His grin came up to meet Cas’s, even if Cas was beginning to tilt his head, clearly wondering what Dean was doing, staring at his carefully crafted sweater vest again. 

“That’s your house,” Dean said, suddenly confident. “The beautiful old home with that amazing, brightly colored trim, the hand-painted bees, the dove house…”

Cas nodded slowly. “Yes. That’s my home. It was my father’s, and I shared it with my sister until she moved across town recently. I live there alone, now.”

“You know,” Dean said grinning, “the best thing about that house is that it’s a colonial… you know, back in colonial times, they’d have been horrified at that much color and artistry. It wasn’t done.”

Cas nodded, faster then. “Oh yes, I know. I don’t like to do what people expect, you see… rules are for the library,” he added with a smirk. “Not for home.”

“And the historical society?’ Dean questioned, tilting his head.

“A hobby, mostly, though another thing that carries the weight of my family’s legacy.” Cas responded, nodding.

The Novak family carried a long history, that much was clear. It was the stuff of local legend, their tangled dealings with the Shurley family, on and off, until eventually only the Novak name remained. It was a weight, a history. Sure, Dean’s family had history, too; his Dad had been full of tales and names and dates. But Dean hadn’t just defiled a man in the middle of  _ his _ history.

“Well, we just  _ sullied _ your family’s library,” Dean said, pushing up off the bookcase.

“Oh,” said Cas, smiling with faux-innocence. “You should hear what my grandmother says she got up to in here.”

Dean would end up hysterical against the bookcase if he thought about that too much. So instead he bent down, grabbing his backpack from where it had fallen and hoisting it to his shoulder. He cleared his throat and stuck out his hand, a silent question.

“Ah—” said Cas, cutting off sharply and pointing at the disheveled bookshelf behind Dean. “If you think I’m letting you leave those books you knocked over just because you’re covered in semen, you’re definitely wrong.”

Tipping his head back against the shelf once more, Dean groaned. “God, you’re such a Dragon.”

The smile that slowly creased Cas’s face was a little shy—the softy librarian part of him, for sure—but the voice certainly was not. “You like it, Dean. So, clean up while I grab my things from my desk.” With that, he practically spun on the spot—as he seemed wont to do—and hustled off across the thick carpet to the special collections room. 

The library was so quiet that once Cas’s feet traversed the doorway onto the clean, white-titled floor of the preservation area, Dean could hear his terribly sensible shoes heading over to his desk. Shaking his head in amusement, Dean began neatly lining up the books that he’d knocked over while Cas’s hand had been wrapped around his dick, not to mention the whole row he’d toppled before they even got that far. He hummed to himself softly, Led Zeppelin’s  _ Whole Lotta Love,  _ and wondered what the fireplace of the colonial was like and if—one day, of course—there might be parking for Baby around the back, past the dove house.

But he wouldn’t get ahead of himself. He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, he chastised. This could be too good a thing to rush and spoil, it really could. Perhaps Cas really did want more than  _ just _ a quick fumble in the stacks, but maybe he wasn’t the picket fence kind.

The chance to actually find out, rather than daydream, was precious.

Dean was done in a few minutes, and Cas reappeared next to him quietly, a beige trench coat over his sweater and a surprisingly scruffy messenger bag across one shoulder. His huge, ocean-blue eyes surveyed the shelves Dean had tended. Who knew a Dragon’s eyes could be blue rather than yellow?

“Very good,” he rumbled warmly, looking over at Dean. Cas reached forward, entwining their fingers, less nervous-looking than Dean would have thought. Instead, he looked Dean over somewhat possessively as they moved across the deep, green carpet, hand-in-hand.

There was something…smug, in his smile, and it took Dean a second to clock what they looked like.

Dean was still flushed, both of their lips pink, and Dean’s cheeks were prickling with stubble-burn. There were possessive marks on his neck, and his clothes—rumpled and stained—told the exact tale of what they’d been up to amongst the old books of the Charles J. Shurley-Novak collection. 

“That’s your sister down there, isn’t it?” Dean registered slowly, remembering Anna as they made their way down the library stairs together, to a cacophony of creaking that could have been the old house cheering at the developments.

Cas managed to at least look a little cowed as he nodded. 

“Show off,” Dean said, as he braced himself to walk past her.

Cas’s laugh was low and dark, and he squeezed Dean’s hand tighter for a moment. “Perhaps I can change the rumors. Maybe she can tell people that I didn’t kick out  _ all  _ of the rule breakers—I kept one of them.”

Whether Anna Novak had heard the end of their conversation or was just waiting for them to come down from the second floor, Dean wasn’t quite sure. Regardless, he took a great deal of personal satisfaction in the way her mouth hung open like she could catch flies as they moved through the foyer together.

“I’m heading home for the night, Anna,” Cas said, calmly. “Would you lock up please, when you’re done?”

Her grin was wide and delighted, filled with the kind of teasing glee only a sister could have, and in lieu of answering, she merely raised both hands and slowly clapped as they made their way out of the door.

“Oh, god,” Dean said, laughing as he ducked his head and stepped out onto the stone steps of the library frontage. “That was embarrassing. You’re a dick, you know that?”

“And you aren’t?”

“Touché,” said Dean. The evening breeze was fresh and tingled his nostrils beautifully as Dean stood, hand in hand with the Dragon, on the library steps. His eyes took in the corner of the adorable town square that he could see from where he stood, the fountain still trickling, though too far away to hear. He looked at the flowers in their baskets on the crosswalk, and then back to the charming little plaque on the library’s red brick wall, reminding him of the age of the building and that it had survived an earthquake—except for its door frames. Then he turned his eyes to the colonial on the other side of the parking lot, where the judgmental cat was already peering in their direction. Dean smiled.

Cas watched him look. “Dean?” he said softly, double-checking. “Are you sure that this—all of this: me, my life, my library…are really what you’re looking for?”

Dean couldn’t help but lean over, checking with Cas’s eyes—affirmative—before he softly pressed their lips together once more. “You have no idea,” he whispered honestly. He couldn’t blame Cas for doubting a little that Dean would really be into him, but he was. Not because there was anything wrong with the way Cas was—oh no, far, far from that—but because Dean hadn’t thought he’d be into it, either.

But he was, oh, how he was. 

They made it a few more steps across the lot before Dean nudged Cas’s shoulder, pulling his attention back up from where he’d been smiling quietly down at the concrete. 

“So, Cas. How do you feel about picket fences?” he asked conversationally, unable to help his grin, and free to let his weirdness just  _ be _ . “And have you ever thought about knitting, say, a blanket in that lavender yarn…something that would fit the back seat of a car?”

“I—yes,” Cas said, a twinkle in his eye that might have been understanding, as vague as Dean’s odd, intense questions might be. “I like picket fences. I don’t have one now, of course, but… I think for the future, that’s definitely what I’m looking to build. Even if you clearly have no idea how much good yarn costs.”

Dean’s heart soared, delighted. He followed as Cas led them off to his painted colonial, where they spent the night deep in conversation. They spoke about their passions, outside of the beautiful, red-brick library, and found that in their differences, they fit, like pieces of a puzzle they didn’t have the box for.

It was the start of something, something almost perfect.

They could, indeed, be intense together. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading to the end!
> 
> If you enjoyed the fic, I'd love to chat with you about it! I love responding to comments, and I can be found on tumblr or twitter as MalMuses.
> 
> If you're feeling so inclined, the rebloggable master post for this fic is here.
> 
> BeesandBroomsticks Art Masterpost can be found here.
> 
> I appreciate you, endlessly!
> 
> \- Mal <3


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